Air Emission Reporting – Update 1: New information on the air emissions reporting issue

The following is provided as an update to our 11/1/17 e-Alert article. This update includes how to find out if your farm signed the EPA Compliance Agreement in 2005, what National Milk is doing on this topic, and what actions a farm could do now if they didn’t participate in the Agreement.

What if the farm is unsure if they signed the 2005 air emissions compliance agreement?
Some farms are unsure if they participated in the Air Emissions Compliance Agreement and Final Order (Agreement) in 2005 and have asked PRO-DAIRY for a list of NYS farms that are participating in the Agreement. As far as we know, no such list was ever made publicly available at any time, but we were able to confirm from EPA that farms who want to know if they did sign the Agreement can contact an EPA staff person to see if they signed.

EPA asked us to have farms contact:

Mr. Timothy J. Sullivan
Air Enforcement Division
Office of Civil Enforcement
Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
1595 Wynkoop Street (MC 8MSU)
Denver, Colorado 80202
Phone: 303.312.6196 │ Email: sullivan.tim@epa.gov

Conversation with National Milk Producers Federation (NMPF) legal staff: Today we learned from NMPF legal staff that they are also working closely with EPA on this issue. NMPF has suggested waiting a week before submitting a report because the current multiple reporting forms on the EPA website are too many and overly complex, and PRO-DAIRY concurs with NMPF.

Ok, what can I do in the meantime?
Farms that may have participated in the Agreement in 2005, but are not sure, can contact EPA to determine if they will need to do anything further at this time. Farms that are participating in the Agreement are exempt from reporting emissions until such time the EPA emission estimation tool is released (this may be months, or this may be years). Farms that did not participate in the Agreement should start evaluating their emissions, their risks in reporting vs not reporting, and keep watch out for the next update scheduled to be released within the next few days.