Feedback from ADEQ

Earlier this week, I spoke to Trevor Baggiore who is the manager of the air quality permits section at The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ). He was quite helpful and very open. They're watching Bowie with some interest; he attended the April work session, and expressed interest in how the BoS politics are shaping up. ADEQ hasn't received a formal request for a permit from SWPG yet.

ADEQ will not revise the old air quality permit for the proposed natural gas, but will come up with a new one that is line with IGCC emissions and the National Ambient Air Quality Standards.

At this point they don't have any regulations on the book for CO2 sequestering (That may be something that has to come from the legislature - ?), but even so they don't regard greenhouses as a permanent form of carbon dioxide sequestering. This makes perfect sense, particularly with a short-lived crop like tomatoes.

He agreed that an IGCC plant will emit more oxides of nitrogen than a natural gas plant - and they would apply the national standards here.

So, ADEQ is not going to hold the Bowie plant to any sort of requirement on CO2 emission. All that stuff we've been hearing from SWPG about greenhouses won't amount to anything with ADEQ - and may not ever happen. I noticed at the July 7 "power lunch,” that SWPG was backing away from the greenhouses a bit. If CO2 matters to us, we need to convince the county that it's important.

In addition, this confirms that the county is the gatekeeper; ADEQ will regulate the plant and its emissions but not to a particularly high standard. Perhaps we need to make it clear to the supervisors that, if this plant is approved, we can anticipate far more emissions than with a natural gas plant.