Idahoans rely on clear water and air every day, but people may not always know what sources of pollution exist that are threatening these precious resources.
That’s where ICL steps in, with our longstanding work to protect Idaho’s clean water and air. On the water front, our Annual Wastewater Treatment Plant Report (most recently issued this past summer) tracks the compliance of all wastewater treatment plants in Idaho with each plant’s pollution limits. Our periodic Groundwater Report analyzes groundwater pollutants in the Magic Valley. ICL staff also review every Clean Water Act discharge permit that is proposed in the state, frequently submitting comments to improve those important safeguards.
Then there’s something that people often take for granted—clean air. Air quality is often top of mind for Idahoans when there’s wildfire smoke in the summer and inversions in the winter. Both these events can push air quality to unhealthy levels that are far beyond the concentrations the federal government tries to maintain across the nation (known as the National Ambient Air Quality Standard or NAAQS).
Yet beyond these events, there are countless sources of daily air pollution all around us—coming from vehicle emissions, industrial sources, and even living things! These sources don’t generally push air pollution concentrations above the NAAQS limits in Idaho, but recent studies suggest that even low level pollution concentrations below the EPA’s NAAQS can have harmful effects. The closer and more often you live, work, and recreate next to these “daily” sources, the more air pollution you are likely exposed to. In this way, your exposure to air pollution can be very localized.
One of the most common sources of daily air pollution are industrial facilities. These sources (which are called ‘point source pollution’ in the air permitting world) include the typical large facilities like power plants and manufacturing plants, but also just about any facility that emits air pollution through any kind of smoke stack. Some of the smallest industrial sources in Idaho may only emit a couple hundred pounds of air pollutants per year, but the largest can emit thousands of tons!
Thanks to the Clean Air Act, the largest industrial sources (known as Major Sources) are required to report the amount of air pollutants they emit each year. This includes reporting what are known as the Criteria Pollutants (particulate matter [PM], carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide, sulfur dioxide, and volatile organic compounds). Major Sources may optionally report additional air pollutants known as Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs), but are not required to do so. In Idaho, during any given year there are about 47 total industrial facilities who emit enough to have to report their annual emissions.
Below is a chart that visually shows this data for the past five years. It includes Idaho’s five largest air polluters, the amount and the type of pollutant they emitted, and a comparison to the other 42 facilities combined. This chart was compiled from data received from the Idaho Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) through public records requests.
As you can see, the five largest industrial air polluters in Idaho emitted more pollutants than the remaining 42 major industrial sources combined! For reference, burning ten pounds of firewood releases about two and half pounds of air pollution. Three of those top five polluting facilities are all branches of Amalgamated Sugar, whose three facilities in Idaho combine for a whopping 36,197 tons of air pollutants in the last five years. Furthermore, the top five polluters did not include any HAP emissions data in their annual reporting, despite the fact that we know they actually did emit certain HAP pollutants based on the nature of their industrial process and other publicly available permitting and reporting. What does that exactly mean? The public doesn’t have a very transparent way of knowing how much hazardous air pollutants these five large facilities have been emitting into our air.
(Credit @arbyreed on flickr. No changes made. https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/2.0/)
It is important to note that all 47 industrial sources included in the data above are required to obtain what is known as a Tier I permit (known as a Title V permit federally) from Idaho DEQ. This permit requires the facility to demonstrate their emitted pollutants don’t exceed the federal NAAQS beyond their property boundary. However, sometimes both planned and unplanned operational upsets, known as excess emission events, can lead to scenarios where facilities emit pollutants in excess of their individual permit limits.
Furthermore, while there are NAAQS limits for the Criteria Pollutant, there are no NAAQS limits for any Hazardous Air Pollutants like benzene, formaldehyde, and heavy metals. Some federal regulations called NESHAPs do regulate some sources of HAPs, but they don’t necessarily address all HAPs and all their sources. If you do live close to a large industrial source, there are other sources of publicly available pollution data to help you understand what might be being emitted around you. One such source is the EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) database.
If you’re curious to know what industrial sources might be near you, check out the table below to see all 47 sources in Idaho.
If you have any specific questions or comments on air pollution or industrial sources, you can contact ICL’s Conservation Associate Will Tiedemann. Want to support ICL’s work to protect the air you breath? Become a member today!
