Feb. 12—Louisiana should prioritize its biggest polluting facilities for new real-time, fence-line air monitoring if it wants to pursue such a program, though later phases could bring in all 476 operations in the state with a common air permit, a Senate task force has recommended.
In the high-priority category are plants near population centers that also are in the top 10% or 20% for total emissions and for toxicity of emissions, the panel concluded in a new report.
"This phased approach, starting with the highest-priority sources, would limit initial expenditures, allow refinement of monitoring tools, and enable strategic deployment of multiple monitors at the largest emitting facilities or clusters," the report from the Senate Community Air Monitoring and Notification Task Force says.
The task force's outline of a pathway for widespread fence-line air monitoring represents a minor breakthrough for environmental and community advocates who have lobbied for several years for such a program to better track pollution from the state's industrial corridor.
Pushed by former state Sen. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge — who is now is Congress — the idea has gained little traction in the Legislature in past years.
Industry groups and some legislators have argued the monitors would be redundant because plants already do monitoring, could produce data that would be misinterpreted by the public and would be too costly for questionable additional benefit.
Under the previous administration, Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) officials also aired their concerns about the cost the agency would face to accomplish the goals of such a program. DEQ is largely a self-financed agency, relying on fees, federal grants and other sources to keep it running.
Under Gov. Jeff Landry, DEQ Secretary Aurelia Giacometto has taken over leadership of the agency with the goal of streamlining the regulatory burden for business and marrying environmental oversight with economic development. Such a widespread monitoring program could arguably expand that burden.
Complexity of This Issue
The report's recommendation pleased task force members who have lobbied for closer scrutiny on air emissions, including Kathy Wascom of the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, Lindsay Cooper Phillips of the Clean Air Task Force and state Rep. Alonzo Knox, D-New Orleans, a co-author of a resolution that formed the task force last year.
The task force, which has been meeting since the summer, agreed this week at the State Capitol to submit the report before a legislatively imposed deadline of Feb. 15. But the panel left undetermined, however, how the program would be paid for or which state agency would oversee it, though the state Department of Environmental Quality currently handles air quality monitoring.
DEQ and legislative estimates in 2023 and again this year suggested each monitor could cost around $791,000, or $376.5 million in total if each facility only needed one monitor. The report anticipates the largest complexes could need several, however, pushing that figure far higher.
DEQ's costs to keep up with the monitors and their mass of data would require 48 new staff and around $8.2 million per year. Legislation in 2023 anticipated that businesses and plants would buy the monitors upfront and pay to maintain the equipment.
The real-time notification system piece of the program would cost another $5.2 million.
During the hearing Tuesday, former Baton Rouge-area state Sen. Mack "Bodi" White, a task force member, noted that report is silent on financing and asked Giacometto how the program would be paid for.
Giacometto, who chairs the panel, told White that the Senate resolution that called for the task force didn't request funding options, so the committee has left that up to the Legislature to determine.
She emphasized on several occasions that the task force report was hewing to the "deliverables" required in the resolution that formed the task force.
One of the deliverables called for by the resolution was left unanswered, however. The resolution called on DEQ to determine the public health cost from air pollution, but the report says DEQ and the state Department of Health were unable to come up with that number without more research.
"Given the complexity of this issue and the scope of data required, it was determined that additional funding and time are necessary to develop comprehensive and reliable estimates of these costs," the report says.
Building Local Support
State Rep. Kimberly Landry Coates, R-Ponchatoula, who also sits on the panel and the House Appropriations Committee, asked Giacometto for a list of facilities representing the top 20% of emitters so she could see what that cost might be. That list could be added later as an amendment to the report.
In a later interview, Coates said she didn't receive a copy of the report until the day before the task force meeting and needed more information.
"I just thought some of the information was too general, and I think we would need more details to be able to make any kind of decision," she said.
Knox has questioned DEQ's cost and personnel estimates and been critical of the report's focus on all 476 facilities with Title V air permits. He has claimed that focus inflated the cost with bakeries, car washes and other smaller businesses when he and others who want monitoring are really focused on large industrial operations. In prior task force meetings, Knox had asked for a narrowed list of facilities.
The resolution forming the task force specifically asked the group to look at Title V facilities, a point Giacometto has made repeatedly. A copy of the list of Louisiana's 476 Title V facilities was made public with the report this week.
It includes Louisiana's big chemical, oil refining, gas processing and pipeline operations and electrical generation plants. The list also includes public landfills, bakeries, sugar and paper mills, and packaging plants. It didn't appear to include car washes.
While Knox aired some of those concerns again this week, he told Giacometto he appreciated the recommendation to prioritize the largest facilities first.
In addition to recommending ways to accomplish fence-line monitoring, the report raises the idea of using less costly but also less detailed air sensors to supplement the program and fill in network gaps. It also suggests bringing in the public to help select monitoring sites.
"Public input would enhance transparency and accountability while building local support for the program," the report says.
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