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Wednesday, September 01, 2004

Environment - Indiana air board meeting turns contentious today

The Indiana Air Pollution Control Board meeting had some fireworks this afternoon over a Hoosier Environmental Council (HEC) petition for a new mercury rule. The citizen petition was submitted to the Air Board in June, pursuant to the provisions of IC 13-14-8-5, which allows citizen-initiated rulemaking under certain conditions:

Sec. 5. (a) Any person may present written proposals for the adoption, amendment, or repeal of a rule by one (1) of the boards. A proposal presented under this section must be:
(1) supported by a statement of reasons; and
(2) accompanied by a petition signed by at least two hundred (200) persons.
(b) If the board with rulemaking authority in the subject area to which the rule pertains finds that the proposal:
(1) is not plainly devoid of merit; and
(2) does not deal with a subject on which a hearing was held within the previous six (6) months of the submission of the proposal;
the board shall give notice and hold a hearing on the proposal.
As added by P.L.1-1996, SEC.4.
The dispute today involved a "Proposal for Mercury Rule Workgroup" (available here) prepared for the Board by IDEM, and in particular whether the IDEM proposal for proceeding corresponded to the process set out in the statute.

The South Bend Tribune was there taking copious notes, so I look forward to an interesting story tomorrow and will post the link here.

[Update 9/2/04] No South Bend Tribune story today [wrong, see below], but the Indianapolis Star published this coverage of yesterday's Air Board meeting. Some quotes:

Indiana residents will get a chance to speak up about a proposal to curb mercury emissions from coal-fired power plants -- if they're willing to drive to Indianapolis. The state Air Pollution Control Board voted Wednesday to hold one public hearing, at the board's Oct. 6 meeting, rejecting environmentalists' calls for additional hearings in the state. * * *

Three months ago, the Hoosier Environmental Council presented a petition asking the board to require Indiana coal-burning plants to reduce mercury emissions 90 percent by 2008 and to hold public hearings on the issue.

Although the petition had enough signatures to require the board by law to hold a hearing, some members had said they wanted to wait for a recommendation from a work group of regulators, industry and environmentalists, which would study how strictly mercury emissions should be regulated.

The work group, proposed after environmentalists requested the hearing, also was approved Wednesday and is expected to begin meeting later this month. The group could ask the board to consider more public hearings after it has gathered more information, officials of the Indiana Department of Environmental Management said.

But environmentalists said the public should be heard at the beginning of the process. "The work group is welcome, but is not a substitute . . . for a public hearing," said board member Tom Anderson, executive director of the Save the Dunes Council in Michigan City. "It's a good opportunity to bring issues forward that may need to be addressed."

And here is the South Bend Tribune story. Some quotes:
INDIANAPOLIS -- Indiana waters are so contaminated with methyl mercury that the state warns people not to eat fish from any state river or from 47,000 acres of its lakes.

Yet a state environmental board has rebuffed environmentalists' requests for multiple public hearings on the topic, opting instead for a single public hearing next month and a series of "work-group" discussions by industry, environmentalists and others. * * *

The decision frustrated environmentalists who had formally petitioned the board for hearings, using a state law that requires hearings upon successful filing of a petition. But the law is silent about the number or schedule of hearings, leaving room for dispute between the Air Pollution Control Board and the Hoosier Environmental Council, which filed the petition. * * *

[S]tate environmental officials said the right approach to a complex and likely contentious new pollution rule will require more than public input, especially since data abounds on the technical, financial and environmental aspects of mercury-emissions control.

"We don't need to reinvent the wheel here," said Janet McCabe, assistant commissioner in the Office of Air Quality at the Indiana Department of Environmental Management. McCabe proposed a schedule of meetings and topics for the work group, including one public hearing in Indianapolis in October.

Posted by Marcia Oddi on September 1, 2004 03:27 PM
Posted to Environmental Issues