Plant's emissions lamented

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Sunday, October 24, 1999

Plant's emissions lamented

By

Review-Journal

County Health District air quality officials, in the words of

Director Naylor, " dropped the ball " a decade ago when they allowed

an Overton silica processing plant to operate without proper emission

controls.

J.R. Simplot Co. could face substantial federal penalties from the

Environmental Protection Agency, which sent the company a violation notice

on Sept. 24.

No penalties have been assessed yet, but they could be as much as

$27,500 per day per violation, according to Lois Grunwald, an EPA

spokeswoman for the San Francisco region, which includes Nevada.

She said the EPA is seeking more information from company officials.

In similar cases, fines have been reduced through negotiations and

compliance agreements, Grunwald said.

Fred Zerza, Simplot's vice president for public relations at the

company's corporate headquarters in Boise, Idaho, said, " We don't accept the

allegation that we're out of compliance as far as our operating permit for

sulfur dioxide.

" We have some objections to actions that are being required by EPA.

We're now in the process of preparing responses to both EPA and County

and will be submitting those to them to substantiate our view on this, "

Zerza said Wednesday.

According to a note on Naylor's stationery to the chief health

officer, Dr. Kwalick, " We dropped the ball 10 years ago on assuring "

the best available technology to control emissions of sulfur dioxide, a

regulated pollutant.

The note was written " a couple weeks ago, " said health district

spokeswoman Sizemore. She said the health district didn't have a

compliance department when the permit for a modification to the plant was

being processed. " They took the word of the company, " she said.

The district's Air Pollution Control Division did, however, have an

enforcement section staffed in 1988 when Simplot's air permits were being

processed. That's when a scrubber -- a pollution control device -- was

removed during a modification of the plant. Federal regulations require

performance testing of pollution control equipment to be done by a

qualified, independent third party, but in this case Naylor allowed the

company to do its own testing.

According to the EPA's violation notice, the health district's

" control officer should not have issued the operating permit to Simplot

because Simplot was not, and is not operating in compliance with the

district's Air Pollution Control regulations and all applicable state and

federal regulations. "

The EPA's notice says the health district issued Simplot an operating

permit in 1997 that allowed sulfur dioxide emissions totaling 84 tons per

year. But the company's actual emissions were potentially more than double

that, 187 tons per year.

On Sept. 20, Naylor ordered Simplot to correct the pollution-control

problem within six months by installing equipment on the plant's coal-fired

sand dryer.

In a matter involving another company, Capital Cabinet Corp. of North

Las Vegas, the EPA's regional permits chief, Matt Haber, wrote Naylor on

Oct. 7, saying the company's proposed air quality permit is deficient

because it lacks certain requirements for the state's plan to curb air

pollution and because there is a " series of problems " with its construction

permit.

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