ORDERS:
CONSENT ORDER OF DISMISSAL
This matter is before the South Carolina Administrative Law Court pursuant to the
February 24, 2004 Petition for Administrative Review filed by United States Air Force
(“USAF”), 437th Airlift Wing, Charleston Air Force Base, requesting a contested case hearing
regarding the Department’s renewal of Clean Air Act (CAA) Conditional Major Permit No. CM-0560-0205 for the Scotts-Sierra Horticultural Products Co. (“Scotts-Sierra”) fertilizer plant in
North Charleston, South Carolina. Prior to a hearing in this case, the parties resolved all issues
and have agreed to the following terms of settlement:
Part IV. Schedule of Compliance (CM-0560-0205)
A.Schedule(s)
The permittee shall achieve compliance with the permit in accordance with the following:
1. Permit duration shall be reduced from five years to a term of three years.
Should the measures below successfully resolve the irritation episodes,
Scotts-Sierra may request for consideration extension of the permit term by
DHEC to five years from the effective date of the permit. Such request shall
be made in writing to SCDHEC Bureau of Air Quality no later than 3 months
prior to the date of permit expiration (March 31, 2007);
2. No later than January 1, 2005, Scotts-Sierra shall implement minor
technical fixes to reduce odors/emissions from their facility, including adding
fume collection for the sludge hopper, redirecting and/or relocating interior
exhaust fans to reduce odors emanating from the plant, and maintaining and
properly operating these fixes, along with the existing thermal oxidizer
temperature controls and the existing smolder prevention sprinkler system.
3. Scotts-Sierra has conducted an engineering study, including an air
dispersion modeling analysis, to determine whether raising any or all of the
stack heights fifteen feet (dependent on pre-coordination with the Federal
Aviation Administration on airfield obstruction heights) is technically feasible
and would improve dispersion of stack gasses for the incinerator and scrubber
stacks in the vicinity of the Rivers Gate area, andhas shared results of the
study with all parties to this agreement.Once theUSAF gate operations
resume, if there are more than2 irritation episodes causing temporary
evacuations of the gate area in a six month period, Scott-Sierra shall as soon
as practicable raise the stack heights, one stack at a time,until suchgate
evacuation episodes discontinue or in lieu of raising stack heights shall as
soon as practicable implement alternate technical fixes that prevent the
evacuation episodes from occurring.Prior to raising the stack heights Scotts-Sierra shall notify DHEC of the planned stack alteration, which must be in
accordance with modeling approved by DHEC. Before any further technical
fixes are implemented,Scotts-Sierra shallnotify DHEC and the USAFwith
adequate time for reviewof proposalsas soon as practically and technically
feasible. DHEC shall grant Scotts-Sierra relief from the continuous CO
monitoring requirement.
4. Scotts-Sierra and the USAF shall continue using an incident notification
system (whereby USAF personnel manning the Rivers Gate area call Scotts-Sierra’ plant POCs immediately upon onset of irritation events) and Scotts-Sierra’s personnel will investigate and, if necessary resolve the irritation event
as soon as possible.
5. Scotts-Sierra shall provide information regarding the constituents
reasonably expected to be present in emissions from its facility’s stacks based
on process knowledge and raw material information and including chemicals
identified in the USAF’s June 24, 2004 letter on scrubber sludge sampling to
the USAF and DHEC no later than September 30, 2004.
6. Scotts-Sierra shall also cooperate with USAF-funded efforts to sample for
“compounds of concern” and other constituents inside and in the vicinity of
the Scotts-Sierra fertilizer plant and adjacent Rivers Gate Security Forces
entry control area should the need for such sampling arise in the future.
This matter is therefore dismissed in accordance with the above terms.
AND IT IS SO ORDERED.
____________________________________Date: September 28, 2004
Carolyn C. Matthews
Administrative Law Judge |
