[Federal Register Volume 84, Number 88 (Tuesday, May 7, 2019)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 19893-19895]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2019-09341]


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ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

40 CFR Part 52 and 81

[EPA-HQ-OAR-2018-0226; FRL-9993-32-Region 3]


National Ambient Air Quality Standards: Determinations of 
Attainment, Extensions of the Attainment Date, and Reclassification of 
Several Areas Classified as Moderate for the 2008 Ozone Standards; 
Supplemental Proposal; Baltimore, Maryland Area Exceptional Events

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION: Proposed rule; reopening of comment period; availability of 
supplemental information.

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SUMMARY: On November 14, 2018, the Environmental Protection Agency 
(EPA) proposed several actions related to the attainment date for 11 
areas classified as ``Moderate'' for the 2008 ozone National Ambient 
Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), including proposing to determine that 
the Baltimore, Maryland nonattainment area (Baltimore Area) attained 
the standard by the July 20, 2018 attainment date. Under the statute, 
EPA must determine whether ozone nonattainment areas attained the NAAQS 
by the attainment date, and, within six months of the attainment date, 
publish a document in the Federal Register identifying each area that 
is determined as having failed to attain and identifying the 
reclassification. EPA is re-opening the comment period for the proposed 
rule published on November 14, 2018, but only with respect to EPA's 
proposed determination for the Baltimore Area, because EPA erroneously 
omitted documents related to the State of Maryland's exceptional events 
(EE) demonstration related to the 2016 Canadian wildfires, and in the 
proposal

[[Page 19894]]

did not mention EPA's concurrence on certain Maryland EE claims that 
impacted the air quality data that EPA relied on in its proposed 
determination that the Baltimore Area attained by its 2008 Moderate 
Area attainment date. This supplemental proposed rule corrects this 
omission and provides notice of the availability of the documents 
supporting EPA's analysis.

DATES: The comment date for the proposed rule published November 14, 
2018, at 83 FR 56781, is reopened. Written comments must be received on 
or before May 22, 2019.

ADDRESSES: Submit your comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-
OAR-2018-0226 at https://www.regulations.gov, or via email to 
[email protected]. For comments submitted at Regulations.gov, 
follow the online instructions for submitting comments. Once submitted, 
comments cannot be edited or removed from Regulations.gov. For either 
manner of submission, the EPA may publish any comment received to its 
public docket. Do not submit electronically any information you 
consider to be Confidential Business Information (CBI) or other 
information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Multimedia 
submissions (audio, video, etc.) must be accompanied by a written 
comment. The written comment is considered the official comment and 
should include discussion of all points you wish to make. The EPA will 
generally not consider comments or comment contents located outside of 
the primary submission (i.e., on the web, cloud, or other file sharing 
system). For additional submission methods, please contact the person 
identified in the For Further Information Contact section. For the full 
EPA public comment policy, information about CBI or multimedia 
submissions, and general guidance on making effective comments, please 
visit http://www2.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: Maria A. Pino, (215) 814-2181, 
Planning & Implementation Branch (3AD30), Air & Radiation Division, 
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region III, 1650 Arch Street, 
Philadelphia, Pennsylvania 19103. The telephone number is (215) 814-
2181. Ms. Pino can also be reached via electronic mail at 
[email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: On November 14, 2018, EPA proposed, among 
other actions, to determine that the Baltimore Area attained the 2008 
ozone NAAQS by the July 20, 2018 attainment date. See 83 FR 56781. This 
supplemental proposal does not address any other actions proposed in 
that rulemaking relating to ten other Moderate nonattainment areas for 
the 2008 ozone NAAQS. In this action, EPA is announcing the 
availability of documents related to Maryland's EE demonstration 
related to the 2016 Canadian wildfires and EPA's evaluation and 
concurrence on certain aspects of that demonstration, which can be 
found in the docket for this rulemaking and online at 
www.regulations.gov. The documents include Maryland's EE submittals, 
EPA's technical support documents (TSDs), and EPA's concurrence letter. 
This action will allow interested persons additional time to review 
those documents and prepare and submit comments. EPA notes that the 
supplemental comment period is 15 days due to the narrow scope of this 
supplemental proposal and the fact that the documents related to 
Maryland's EE demonstration were previously made available to the 
public in the docket for the 2015 ozone NAAQS designations.\1\
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    \1\ The documents associated with Maryland's EE demonstration 
are found at document number EPA-HQ-OAR-2017-0548-0336, at 
www.regulations.gov in Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2017-0548 for EPA's 
Air Quality Designations and Classifications for the 2015 Ozone 
Standards.
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    By letters and enclosures dated May 26, 2017 and October 20, 2017, 
the Maryland Department of the Environment (MDE) submitted EE 
demonstrations related to the May 25 and 26, 2016 Fort McMurray 
wildfire and the July 21 and 22, 2016 northwestern Canada wildfires. 
MDE determined that the Fort McMurray and northwestern Canada wildfires 
caused elevated ozone concentrations at 16 and 12 monitors, 
respectively, throughout Maryland. On December 26, 2017, EPA concurred 
on MDE's EE demonstration for numerous monitors, including three 
monitors in the Baltimore Area, which includes Baltimore City and the 
Counties of Anne Arundel, Baltimore, Carroll, Harford, and Howard, all 
in Maryland. Pursuant to EPA's concurrence, EPA excluded the 
corresponding data affected by the wildfires from EPA's Air Quality 
System (AQS), the database in which air quality data is collected. 
Excluding this data affects the calculated design values at the 
affected monitors. Due to the exclusion of the EE data, the 2015-2017 
design values of the Glen Burnie, Edgewood, and Furley monitors in the 
Baltimore area changed as shown in Table 1.\2\
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    \2\ This data is included in the docket for this rulemaking 
available online at https://www.regulations.gov, Docket ID: Docket 
ID: EPA-HQ-OAR-2018-0226.

         Table 1--2015-2017 Design Values Before and After EE Data Exclusion, in Parts per Billion (ppb)
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                                                                                                     2015-2017
                                                                                   Initial 2015-   Design value
               Site name                       County/city          Monitor ID      2017 design    excluding EE
                                                                                       value           data
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Glen Burnie...........................  Anne Arundel County.....       240031003              74              73
Edgewood..............................  Harford County..........       240251001              76              75
Furley................................  Baltimore City..........       245100054              72              69
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    The design values shown in the column in Table 1 labelled ``2015-
2017 Design Value Excluding EE Data'' are the design values upon which 
EPA relied in the Agency's November 14, 2018 proposal. EPA notes that 
the design values for the Glen Burnie and Furley monitors were below 
the level of the 2008 ozone NAAQS, which is set at 75 ppb, before the 
EE data was excluded. However, the design value at the Edgewood monitor 
(monitor 240251001) only attained the 2008 ozone NAAQS when the EE data 
that EPA determined was influenced by the Fort McMurray and 
northwestern Canada wildfires was excluded from AQS. EPA's concurrence 
on this data exclusion, which influenced EPA's proposed determination 
of attainment by the attainment date for the 2008 ozone NAAQS, is now 
available in the docket for this action at www.regulations.gov.

[[Page 19895]]

List of Subjects

40 CFR Part 52

    Environmental protection, Administrative practice and procedure, 
Air pollution control, Designations and classifications, Incorporation 
by reference, Intergovernmental relations, Nitrogen oxides, Ozone, 
Reporting and recordkeeping requirements and Volatile organic 
compounds.

40 CFR Part 81

    Environmental protection, Administrative practice and procedure, 
Air pollution control, Designations and classifications, 
Intergovernmental relations, Nitrogen oxides, Ozone, Reporting and 
recordkeeping requirements, and Volatile organic compounds.

    Authority: 42 U.S.C. 7401 et seq.

    Dated: April 25, 2019.
Cosmo Servidio,
Regional Administrator, Region III.
[FR Doc. 2019-09341 Filed 5-6-19; 8:45 am]
 BILLING CODE 6560-50-P