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5 facilities on tap for toxic emissions review in Lane County

Register-Guard - 12/1/2019

The Lane Regional Air Protection Agency will begin reviewing industrial sites as it starts to implement the first year of the state's Cleaner Air Oregon rules.

Cleaner Air Oregon's purpose is to protect the health of Oregonians by analyzing the public health risks of air pollution and reduce exposure to that pollution. This week, LRAPA identified the first five industrial sites to be reviewed under the new rules.

Those facilities are Arauco North America, Inc. in Eugene, the Springfield Mill for International Paper, the Eugene plant of J.H. Baxter & Co., Seneca Sustainable Energy, LLC, and The Willamette Valley Company LLC., the agency said earlier this week in a news release.

All of the facilities are located in or near the Eugene-Springfield metro area.

The Environmental Quality Commission adopted the rules for Cleaner Air Oregon, which includes new requirements and permit fees for facilities, in November 2018. The rules also include direction on regulating and taking inventory of toxic emissions, and requirements for community engagement, toxic air monitoring and pollution prevention analysis.

Additionally, new facilities must go through a risk assessment process in order to apply for a permit to operate. Existing facilities do not have to go through the assessment unless called on by the Department of Environmental Quality to do so, but all facilities with air permits will need to pay annual fees and submit a toxic emissions inventory every three years under the new rules.

LRAPA's Board of Directors unanimously voted to integrate the rules in March 2019, and are now starting to review facilities in the area. The facilities for review were prioritized based on preliminary emissions reports, according to the release, and "not based on a health risk assessment."

These first five facilities will be reviewed in the next 12 months.

A second group of facilities will be called in by LRAPA for review in the next two to three years, according to a document detailing the prioritization process. Those facilities are: Emerald Forest Products, Plant No. 1, Hexion Inc., Johnson Crushers International, Murphy Company (Prairie Road Panelboard Plant) and Weyerhaeuser NR Company in Eugene.

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