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Intel Air Permit Unenforceable, Attorney Says |
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Written by Jeff Radford
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Albuquerque-Bernalillo County air quality managers would never have
okayed the pollution permit for Intel approved by the N.M. Environment
Department, according to an attorney who formerly worked for the City
on environmental matters.
“The State has violated its own [Clean Air Act] implementation by
promulgating this permit,” Gary O’Dea said at the September 13 meeting
of Corrales Residents for Clean Air and Water (CRCAW). “That permit is
unenforceable,” he told the citizens’ group meeting. He said in his
opinion the permit was written so that Intel could not be found in
violation.
O’Dea said he worked on the City of Albuquerque’s case against Sparton
Technologies for its decades of ground water pollution south of
Corrales. He said the costs to bring legal action against Sparton were
extremely high. O’Dea said he would not recommend a class action suit
against Intel. “And I’m also not convinced we’re that far down the road
where we would need to sue these guys to get them to do the right
thing.”
O’Dea said he is interested in the Intel issue just in general terms.
He said he deliberately did not attend the recent N.M. Environmental
Improvement Board appeal hearing in Rio Rancho on the new Intel air
permit. But while he was an attorney for the City of Albuquerque, he
took an interest in Intel and its air pollution potential.
“I’ve seen Intel from the regulatory standpoint,” O’Dea said. “I’ve
always scratched my head why they don’t want a Title V permit [intended
for major pollution sources rather than fighting to gain a state permit
as a minor source]. “If you’re a big enough facility it saves you money
in the long run to get a Title V permit,” he said. “But there’s more
monitoring and accountability associated with a major source permit.
Apparently that’s what they feel they don’t want.”
O’Dea said it seemed clear that Intel could decide paying for air
monitors in neighboring communities might be the best, cheapest and
easiest solution.
“This is a multi-billion dollar company that claims it has nothing to
hide. Why don’t they throw a few hundred thousand dollars at some
monitors to prove that they aren’t harming us to shut us up?” O’Dea
asked. “That really, to me, raises some questions. If you are a
businessman and you want to quiet us down, that’s the most
cost-effective way to do it.”
The CRCAW meeting September 13 was also attended by Steve Komadina,
campaigning for a State Senate seat. He cautioned that just
because Intel doesn’t want a monitor doesn’t mean they are dumping
excessive harmful chemicals into the air.
Said Komadina: “It may not be a problem. That’s the thing. You
can’t assume there’s a problem just because they don’t want to
monitor.” O’Dea agreed, but remained suspicious of the company’s
motives for insisting that ambient air should not be monitored.
Said O’Dea; “They have a poor track record. One of the things that
concerns me is that there’s more at play here than just the HAPs
[federally designatd Hazardous Air Pollutants]. There’s also the
National Ambient Air Quality Standards. Intel may be clean on the HAPs,
but not be so clean on violations of the ambient air standards. The
precursors to ozone from that plant, if monitored, might show they are
an ozone hot spot. “That might be another reason why they don’t want
monitors up there.”
The Intel plant is just outside the Albuquerque-Bernalillo County air
quality district where ozone levels are consistently near maximum
allowable limits. But that is likely to change in the near future,
O’Dea said.
“Albuquerque is regularly within 80-90 percent of the maximum for ozone
and particulate matter. The trends clearly show that the metro region
is headed for violations, and Albuquerque’s not going down by
itself. It’s going to drag southern Sandoval and northern Valencia with
it” into an expanded regional air quality management district.
“You’ll see movement in the State Legislature, probably this year, to
create a change in the State Clean Air statute that creates a regional
air quality district [that includes Intel, Rio Rancho, Corrales and
other metro area communities]. “That will involve a lot of issues for
Corrales; it involves transportation planning, mass transit, managed
growth. “A lot of Intel’s concern is what happens when they have to be
included in that larger air management district. My gut feeling is that
is one of the driving reasons why Intel doesn’t want to get its data
out.”
At the meeting, Komadina, a Corrales physician, was asked “what would
it take to geta medical network for data about Corrales residents
with medical problems they associate with Intel?” Komadina said the
State Medical Society has looked into ways to correlate patients’
conditions with environmental factors.
“We looked at that two years ago regarding industrial health. We
actually have a new foundation for getting grants. The money will be
specifically labeled to fund projects for preventative health. I was
thinking about that as I was sitting here listening: Corrales might be
one of the places for our first projects.”
Komadina said that early discussion about correlating medical data
among patient groups had not gotten off the ground when the state
medical society considered it a few years ago. “It was more talk than
anything else.”
Asked what it would take to get area physicians cooperating on such a
project, Komadina said, “Well, the first step is data collection, and
that’s one of the easiest things to do.
“You’ve got Presbyterian Health Care up on the hill. And you’ve got
several other physicians who’ve been here a long time taking care of
people here.
“You could have some kind of questionnaire for people to fill out while
they’re sitting there waiting. And then a report form at the end
of the month that’s easy to fill out… you could do it on-line.
“The State Medical Society might be the ideal place for this to go.”
Komadina said he is now a vice-president of the society and will become
president in two years. Komadina told the CRCAW group, “Let me take
this and run with it.…It’ll be the first of the year before we get
money from Blue Cross Blue Shield” for the society’s projects.
He said it is difficult to tie medical conditions to specific causes.
“If someone uses birth control pills and the next day their hair falls
out, they think the birth control pills did it. Trying to prove
cause-and-effect is much more difficult.
“It would take a lot of data, but what you need is a control group.
You’d have people here and compare it to people who live up around the
tram, for example.”
Retired Los Alamos chemist Fred Marsh, now living in Corrales,
suggested local doctors could analyze patients’ records to determine
whether people living closer to Intel experience greater incidences of
certain kinds of diseases. “You could establish a pattern if you show
that particular illnesses are significantly higher close to the plant
and then as you get farther away, the incidences drop off.”
Komadina replied: “You can get that sort of thing coming out of the
addresses of the patients. But you would need a control group of people
who demographically are the same as those in Corrales… eat the same
kind of food; have the same income levels; exercise the same amount. It
could be designed.”
Komadina said he would get back to CRCAW within about 10 days to
report what might be done to initiate a medical reporting network.
Marsh reported he had been told by meteorologists in an air pollution
consulting firm back east that Corrales topographic situation under
Intel constitutes an almost worst-case condition.
Said Marsh: “In his commentary in Corrales Comment, Jim Casciano said
the fact that the exhaust stacks on the plant are at a given height and
the residences in Corrales are much lower effectively raises the stack
height and gives us more protection.
“Well, these meteorologists that I talked to said that’s absolutely, 100 percent wrong.
“The highest risk possible is to be in a low area next to a pollution
source, particularly when you have inversions as often as we do,” Marsh
reported from his conversation.
“And a river valley, by the way, is an absolute worst case, because it flows down from both directions and acts like a funnel.” |
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Last Updated ( Friday, 25 June 2010 )
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