Tougher EPA rules could stun 30-plus counties

INDIANAPOLIS -- Strict new federal air quality standards that go into effect next year could leave industries in more than 30 Indiana counties facing tightened development restrictions.\nPresently, only northwestern Indiana's Lake and Porter counties exceed the old standard requiring readings of ground-level ozone, or smog, to stay below 0.120 parts per million in a one-hour period.\nHowever, under U.S. Environmental Protection Agency standards tightened in 1997, an additional 31 counties -- including all those in the Evansville, Fort Wayne, Indianapolis, Muncie and Terre Haute metropolitan statistical areas -- could exceed their pollutant limits.\nThe new limits, delayed in taking effect because of court challenges, require ozone levels to average less than 0.08 parts per million in an eight-hour period.\nThe EPA will decide which counties are out of compliance by reviewing 2001-03 data and getting recommendations from the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.\nThat decision, which is expected in April 2004, could subject millions of residents and major industries to new pollution control measures in a state that relies heavily on coal-fired power plants.\nAreas with severe ozone levels, likely Gary, Indianapolis and LaPorte, could be required to ensure that transportation projects, such as road building, do not contribute to higher pollution levels.\nNew and expanding businesses also could face tighter rules, a move officials in some counties fear could hurt economic development.\nAreas not meeting the standard also will have to develop plans to come into compliance. Options include emissions testing of vehicles and the use of reformulated gasoline and vapor controls at gas stations.\nState and local officials already are strategizing in an effort to minimize the effect of new limits.\nAnd state officials are considering whether to request that certain counties not be designated as nonattainment, even though they might be within a metropolitan statistical area that doesn't meet the new standard, said Janet McCabe, assistant commissioner of IDEM's air quality office.\nWithout such a pass, a rural county that produces little ozone could be subjected to the same control measures as more polluting neighbors.\nState officials must submit recommendations to the EPA by July 15.\nMany counties that receive a nonattainment designation may be able to drop it in a few years, McCabe said.\nA state rule implemented in 2001 requiring coal-burning power plants to reduce emissions of nitrogen oxide -- a primary component in the formation of ground-level ozone -- is expected to cut output of that pollutant by 31 percent by 2007.\nAndy Knott, air and energy policy director for the Hoosier Environmental Council, said one of the best ways to reduce ozone is to keep people off the roads as much as possible. Knott said Indiana's mass transit system is sorely lacking, or nonexistent.\n"The government doesn't provide citizens any options for moving around. All it does is build roads," he said.