Birmingham News
August 27, 2003

Commission OKs new air rules; EPA gets final say

08/27/03
KATHERINE BOUMA
News staff writer

MONTGOMERY - The Environmental Management Commission on Tuesday approved a group of new air regulations, including one that would allow polluters to violate the law 2 percent of the time.

"We're just codifying something that we're already doing," said Ron Gore, head of the air division for the Alabama Department of Environmental Management.

Under an old federal law that has never been updated to reflect modern technology, Gore said, polluters cannot be punished for readings on meters in their stacks showing their emissions are opaque, or blacker and sootier than they should be. Instead, trained technicians must see the smoke to record a violation, he said. So it makes little difference whether the department allows the large industries that have such meters to show illegal air pollution 2 percent of the time.

He said the department proposed the new rule because it was under pressure from industry or environmental groups to put its practices into solid regulations.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency must approve the rule change before it could go into effect.

The commission also upheld the permit of a landfill in Sylvan Springs that has been operating for a year. Residents challenged the permit of the landfill, which is authorized to accept only debris from construction and demolition sites.

In other action, the commission asked the department to propose a rule lowering the fees for copies of public records. Now, ADEM charges 40 cents per page, although that is more than the commercial rate or private costs of copies. It also prohibits people from bringing their own copiers.

The department has said it needs the fees to pay for the costs of gathering the material.

Opponents of the fee, including some commissioners and environmental groups, say federal law prohibits the department from collecting money for anything beyond actual copying fees. ADEM's fees are significantly higher than those of other southeastern states.