[Federal Register Volume 84, Number 190 (Tuesday, October 1, 2019)]
[Proposed Rules]
[Pages 52055-52057]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 2019-20927]


=======================================================================
-----------------------------------------------------------------------

ENVIRONMENTAL PROTECTION AGENCY

40 CFR Part 60

[EPA-HQ-OAR-2010-0960; FRL-10000-43-OAR]


Call for Information: Information Related to the Development of 
Emission Estimating Methodologies for Animal Feeding Operations

AGENCY: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).

ACTION: Call for information.

-----------------------------------------------------------------------

SUMMARY: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is soliciting 
quality-assured emissions and process data, and calculation models and 
methodologies that are relevant to developing emission estimating 
methodologies (EEMs) for emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOC) 
from animal feeding operations (AFOs). The EPA may use the data to 
supplement the emissions and process data collected under the National 
Air Emission Monitoring Study (NAEMS) for AFOs.

DATES: Information must be received on or before December 2, 2019.

ADDRESSES: You may send comments, identified by Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-
OAR-2010-0960, by any of the following methods:
     Federal eRulemaking Portal: https://www.regulations.gov/ 
(our preferred method). Follow the online instructions for submitting 
comments.
     Email: [email protected]. Include Docket ID No. EPA-
HQ-OAR-

[[Page 52056]]

2010-0960 in the subject line of the message.
     Fax: (202) 566-9744. Attention Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-
2010-0960.
     Mail: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, EPA Docket 
Center, Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2010-0960, Mail Code 28221T, 1200 
Pennsylvania Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20460.
     Hand/Courier Delivery: EPA Docket Center, WJC West 
Building, Room 3334, 1301 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20004. 
The Docket Center's hours of operation are 8:30 a.m.-4:30 p.m., Monday-
Friday (except federal holidays).
    Instructions: All submissions received must include the Docket ID 
No. for this rulemaking. Comments received may be posted without change 
to https://www.regulations.gov/, including any personal information 
provided. For detailed instructions on sending comments and additional 
information on the rulemaking process, see the SUPPLEMENTARY 
INFORMATION section of this document.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For questions about this Call for 
Information, contact Mr. William Schrock, Sector Policies and Programs 
Division (E143-03), Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards, U.S. 
Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, North Carolina 
27711; telephone number: (919) 541-5032; fax number: (919) 541-0516; 
and email address: [email protected].

SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: 
    Docket. The EPA has established a docket for this rulemaking under 
Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2010-0960. All documents in the docket are 
listed in Regulations.gov. Although listed, some information is not 
publicly available, e.g., Confidential Business Information (CBI) or 
other information whose disclosure is restricted by statute. Certain 
other material, such as copyrighted material, is not placed on the 
internet and will be publicly available only in hard copy. Publicly 
available docket materials are available either electronically in 
Regulations.gov or in hard copy at the EPA Docket Center, Room 3334, 
WJC West Building, 1301 Constitution Avenue NW, Washington, DC. The 
Public Reading Room is open from 8:30 a.m. to 4:30 p.m., Monday through 
Friday, excluding legal holidays. The telephone number for the Public 
Reading Room is (202) 566-1744, and the telephone number for the EPA 
Docket Center is (202) 566-1742.
    Instructions. Direct your comments to Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-
2010-0960. The EPA's policy is that all comments received will be 
included in the public docket without change and may be made available 
online at https://www.regulations.gov/, including any personal 
information provided, unless the comment includes information claimed 
to be CBI or other information whose disclosure is restricted by 
statute. Do not submit information that you consider to be CBI or 
otherwise protected through https://www.regulations.gov/ or email. This 
type of information should be submitted by mail as discussed below.
    The EPA may publish any comment received to its public docket. 
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, the full EPA 
public comment policy, information about CBI or multimedia submissions, 
and general guidance on making effective comments, please visit https://www.epa.gov/dockets/commenting-epa-dockets.
    The https://www.regulations.gov/ website allows you to submit your 
comment anonymously, which means the EPA will not know your identity or 
contact information unless you provide it in the body of your comment. 
If you send an email comment directly to the EPA without going through 
https://www.regulations.gov/, your email address will be automatically 
captured and included as part of the comment that is placed in the 
public docket and made available on the internet. If you submit an 
electronic comment, the EPA recommends that you include your name and 
other contact information in the body of your comment and with any 
digital storage media you submit. If the EPA cannot read your comment 
due to technical difficulties and cannot contact you for clarification, 
the EPA may not be able to consider your comment. Electronic files 
should not include special characters or any form of encryption and be 
free of any defects or viruses. For additional information about the 
EPA's public docket, visit the EPA Docket Center homepage at https://www.epa.gov/dockets.
    Submitting CBI. Do not submit information containing CBI to the EPA 
through https://www.regulations.gov/ or email. Clearly mark the part or 
all of the information that you claim to be CBI. For CBI information on 
any digital storage media that you mail to the EPA, mark the outside of 
the digital storage media as CBI and then identify electronically 
within the digital storage media the specific information that is 
claimed as CBI. In addition to one complete version of the comments 
that includes information claimed as CBI, you must submit a copy of the 
comments that does not contain the information claimed as CBI directly 
to the public docket through the procedures outlined in Instructions 
above. If you submit any digital storage media that does not contain 
CBI, mark the outside of the digital storage media clearly that it does 
not contain CBI. Information not marked as CBI will be included in the 
public docket and the EPA's electronic public docket without prior 
notice. Information marked as CBI will not be disclosed except in 
accordance with procedures set forth in 40 Code of Federal Regulations 
(CFR) part 2. Send or deliver information identified as CBI only to the 
following address: OAQPS Document Control Officer (C404-02), OAQPS, 
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Research Triangle Park, North 
Carolina 27711, Attention Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2010-0960.
    Call for Information acronyms and abbreviations. We use multiple 
acronyms and terms in this Call for Information. While this list may 
not be exhaustive, to ease the reading of this Call for Information and 
for reference purposes, the EPA defines the following terms and 
acronyms here:

AFOs animal feeding operations
CBI Confidential Business Information
EEMs emission estimating methodologies
NAEMS National Air Emission Monitoring Study
SAB Science Advisory Board
VOC volatile organic compounds

I. General Information

A. What is the purpose of this action?

    In 2005, the EPA offered AFOs an opportunity to participate in a 
voluntary consent agreement (70 FR 4958, January 31, 2005) referred to 
as the Air Compliance Agreement. Under the Air Compliance Agreement, 
participating AFOs were responsible for, among other things, the 
funding for NAEMS--a 2-year, nationwide industry-run emissions 
monitoring study of the broiler, egg-layer, swine, and dairy 
industries. Monitoring under NAEMS began in the summer of 2007 and it 
occurred at 25 monitoring sites located in 10 states. The study 
collected process and emissions data for ammonia, hydrogen sulfide, 
particle pollution, and VOC from a representative sample of animal

[[Page 52057]]

housing structures and manure storage and treatment units across the 
country.
    The EPA plans to use these data to develop EEMs for AFOs, which 
will help AFOs determine and comply with any applicable regulatory 
responsibilities under the Clean Air Act. Additional information 
regarding NAEMS can be found at: https://www.epa.gov/afos-air/national-air-emissions-monitoring-study.
    In the January 2005 Federal Register document, the EPA committed to 
using data generated from NAEMS and all other available, relevant data 
to develop EEMs. On January 19, 2011, the EPA published a call for 
information to obtain emissions and process data for animal confinement 
and manure storage and treatment processes at beef, broiler, dairy, 
egg-layer, swine, and turkey AFOs (76 FR 3060). Using the NAEMS data 
and the data obtained through the 2011 call for information, the EPA 
developed draft EEMs for broiler confinement operations and for open 
lagoons and basins at swine and dairy operations. In 2013, the EPA 
requested that the Science Advisory Board (SAB) conduct a review of 
these draft EEMs and provide feedback regarding the development of the 
methodologies. As noted by the SAB in their March 19, 2013, review 
summary, and reaffirmed by recent EPA data reviews, peer-reviewed data 
regarding VOC emissions from AFOs are limited.\1\ Through the Call for 
Information in this document, the EPA is requesting that interested 
parties submit VOC emissions and process data available since 2011 that 
are relevant to the EPA's effort to develop EEMs for animal confinement 
and manure storage and treatment processes at broiler, dairy, egg-
layer, and swine AFOs, particularly for open sources at dairy and swine 
operations (e.g., lagoons and basins).
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

    \1\ See https://www.epa.gov/afos-air/national-air-emissions-monitoring-study#naems-sab.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------

B. What specific information is the EPA seeking?

    The EPA is requesting data for VOC emissions from animal 
confinement and manure storage and treatment processes at broiler, egg-
layer, swine, and dairy AFOs and related process information. 
Consistent with the Air Compliance Agreement, the EPA is focusing in 
the near term on developing EEMs for AFOs using statistical models. 
However, we acknowledge the recommendation that the EPA develop a 
process-based modeling approach that incorporates ``mass balance'' 
constraints to determine emissions from AFOs, made by the National 
Academy of Sciences in its December 2002 final report titled Air 
Emissions from Animal Feeding Operations: Current Knowledge, Future 
Needs. In their 2013 review, the SAB also recommended that the EPA 
develop process-based models for estimating emissions from AFOs. As 
noted in the EPA's 2013 response to the SAB review, we will carefully 
consider its recommendations and we will review all of the information 
available to us in developing the AFO EEMs. To ensure compatibility 
with the NAEMS data, the emissions and related process data provided to 
the EPA should be accompanied, if possible, by documentation that 
contains detailed descriptions of the following parameters, as 
applicable.
    1. General information:
     Description of AFO process measured (e.g., animal 
confinement structure; manure storage and treatment unit; land 
application site).
     Location of AFO process measured (e.g., physical address, 
latitude/longitude coordinates of facility).
     Beginning and ending dates of the monitoring period.
    2. Monitoring data:
     Quality assurance and quality control plan.
     Site monitoring plan.
     Test methods, instrumentation, and standard operating 
procedures used to collect emissions and process data measurements.
     Results of audits conducted on instruments and procedures.
     Field notes and associated documentation collected during 
the monitoring.
     Emissions data (unanalyzed or analyzed) and associated 
process data.
     Meteorological data, including average ambient 
temperature, relative humidity, pressure, wind speed, wind direction, 
and insolation (solar radiation) for each day that the study was 
conducted.
     Production data (e.g., number of eggs produced per day or 
quantity of milk produced per day).
     Calculations and assumptions used to convert concentration 
data (e.g., parts per million by volume) into mass emissions (e.g., 
pounds per hour).
    3. Animal confinement structures:
     Dimensions of structures monitored.
     Designed and permitted animal capacity.
     Type, age, number, and weight of animals contained in the 
confinement structure over the duration of the monitoring period.
     Manure management system (e.g., pull-plug pit, scrape).
     Dates of production and manure management activities over 
the duration of the monitoring period.
     Ventilation method (i.e., natural or mechanical).
     Calculations and assumptions used to estimate the 
ventilation rate of the monitored confinement structure.
     Calibration procedures for instruments (e.g., flow meters, 
fan relays) used to collect data for calculating ventilation rate of 
the monitored confinement structure.
     Data on air temperature and relative humidity within the 
structure for each day that the study was conducted.
     Organics content of process inputs and outputs (e.g., 
feed, water, bedding, eggs, milk).
     Organics content of manure excreted.
     Description of any control device or work practice used in 
the monitored structure to reduce emissions.
    4. Manure storage and treatment processes:
     Type, age, number, and weight of animals contributing 
manure to the storage and treatment process over the monitoring period.
     Dimensions of storage/treatment unit monitored (e.g., 
storage pile, tank, lagoon).
     Depth of settled solids in storage/treatment unit.
     Temperature, pH, and reduction/oxidation potential of 
manure contained in the storage/treatment unit.
     Moisture, total solids, volatile solids, organic content, 
total Kjeldahl nitrogen, and ammoniacal nitrogen content and pH of 
manure entering storage and treatment process over the monitoring 
period.
    With regard to the format of the information, we request that 
emissions, process, and production data be submitted to the EPA in 
Microsoft[supreg] Excel[supreg] spreadsheet or Access[supreg] database 
format. In cases where the emissions, process, and production data 
correspond to time increments shorter than 1 hour, please provide 
sufficient information and supporting documentation with the data to 
allow the EPA to develop emission estimates on a per-hour and per-day 
basis. For all formats, please clearly label the units of measure of 
emissions, process, and production data submitted.

    Dated: September 18, 2019.
Anne L. Idsal,
Acting Assistant Administrator.
[FR Doc. 2019-20927 Filed 9-30-19; 8:45 am]
BILLING CODE 6560-50-P