EPA: New chemical emissions rule to benefit Ohio River Valley, drastically cut air toxics

The EPA estimated that its rule covering equipment and processes chemical plants use to make synthetic organic chemicals, polymers and resins will reduce more than 6,200 tons a year of over 100 air toxins. One of those is ethylene oxide, a carcinogenic gas emitted from facilities in Institute and South ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä that has driven up the region’s cancer risk since the EPA classified it as a carcinogen in 2016.

The two Kanawha County facilities the EPA said last year would be covered by the then-proposed rule are the Chemours Co.’s facility in Belle and Altivia’s facility in Institute. The other two facilities are Chemours’ Washington Works site in Washington, Wood County, and the former Koppers Inc. facility in Follansbee, Brooke County, acquired from the wood treatment chemical provider by Petro Empire Liquids and Storage LLC in 2021.

But the final rule doesn’t cover other ethylene oxide-emitting facilities that have fueled environmental health concerns in Kanawha County.

Union Carbide facilities in Institute and South ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä that emitted over 400 tons of ethylene oxide into the air from 1987 through 2021 don’t make synthetic organic chemicals and are covered by a different rule for production of polyether polyols.

Polyether polyols are used in making lubricants, soaps, adhesives and sealants. Union Carbide’s Kanawha County facilities have used ethylene oxide to make surfactants and detergents.

A Specialty Products LLC facility in Institute that also has helped drive up the area’s cancer risk seeking a five-year permit renewal makes a water-soluble polymer used in pharmaceuticals, personal care products and adhesives.

But environmental health advocates hailed the rule as a win in the fight to lower toxic air pollution that has cast a long shadow for decades over communities like Institute, a historically Black-majority community.

Lucia Valentine, West Virginia field organizer for Moms Clean Air Force, in a statement called the rule a “critical step towards environmental justice.�

“For too long, communities, especially those that are predominantly Black, Latino, and low-income, have suffered unnecessary exposure to these dangers,� Patrice Simms, vice president for healthy communities at Earthjustice, a national environmental law nonprofit, said in a statement. “The EPA’s actions today represent a critical move towards rectifying these injustices and ensuring a safer, healthier environment.�

Chemours and Altivia did not respond to requests for comment.

Rule estimated to cut ethylene oxide emissions by 80%

The EPA listed the Ohio River Valley as a region that has equipment and processes covered by the rule in a fact sheet it released on the final rule.

The EPA noted the final rule is expected to cut nearly 54 tons of ethylene oxide emissions per year, a nearly 80% reduction in emissions of the chemical compared with emissions from covered processes and equipment before the rule.

The expected reductions come from requirements that include:

• Enhancing the efficiency of flares that used to control pollution from emissions sources
• Tightening standards for heat exchange systems, process vents and storage vessels
• Erasing general exemptions from emissions control requirements during periods of startup, shutdown and malfunction

The rule mandates that plants perform fenceline monitoring that measures pollution levels in the air around a facility’s perimeter if any of the equipment or processes covered by the rule use, produce, store or emit:

• Ethylene oxide
• Chloroprene
• Benzene
• 1,3- butadiene
• Ethylene dichloride
• Vinyl chloride

Monitoring data will be publicly available

The EPA said last year it expects 128 of 218 facilities covered by the then-proposed rule nationwide to have to monitor for at least one of the pollutants.

If annual average air concentrations of the chemicals exceed an “action level� at the fence line, owners and operators would have to find the source and make repairs.

Fence-line monitoring would have to be performed at the Washington Works facility and former Koppers Inc. facility in Follansbee, the EPA told the Gazette-Mail last year after proposing the rule.

According to an EPA spokesperson last year, both sites would have to monitor for emissions of benzene, a chemical that causes cell abnormalities and that the National Cancer Institute says increases the risk of leukemia and other blood disorders.

The EPA will make monitoring data available on its WebFIRE webpage at bit.ly/EPAWebFIRE.

The EPA had proposed mandating monitoring to begin one year after the effective date of the rule, which comes 60 days after the rule is published in the Federal Register. But the EPA set a two-year deadline in response to comments that facilities and laboratories need more preparation time to start the monitoring programs.

That wasn’t enough of a concession for the American Chemistry Council, a prominent chemical industry trade group.

The group criticized the toxicity value the EPA has used to evaluate ethylene oxide in its human health assessment program.

The EPA has faced contrasting criticism that it was too slow to classify ethylene oxide as a carcinogen in 2016, 16 years after the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ National Toxicology Program first listed it as one.

In a statement Wednesday, the American Chemistry Council said the rule — which environmental groups fought to force the EPA to update for years — imperils national supply chain priorities by threatening “production of chemistries� needed for everyday products.

But for communities like Institute, environmental health advocates say the new rule is long overdue — both legally under an extended deadline from a 2022 federal court agreement the EPA entered agreeing to advance rulemaking and morally.

“Today is a day for celebration,� Beverly Wright, founder and executive director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, echoed in an EPA event announcing the new rule at the agency’s headquarters in Washington, D.C. Tuesday. “Not because we have arrived, but because we have made a critical breakthrough for advancing environmental justice.�