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The December 7-11  inspection of? Intel’s air pollution records by Dallas Region Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) officials was the second step in a continuing enforcement action which could bring changes in the way Intel is regulated.
Documents obtained by Corrales Comment and interviews with N.M. Air Quality Bureau officials and Intel representatives indicate tighter regulations may be imposed.
That could include more testing, monitoring or even daily or hourly limits on emissions of airborne industrial chemicals.
EPA’s findings from its December 2009 in-depth inspection are not expected until summer, but Intel officials have already held exploratory, pro-active discussions with Air Quality Bureau regulators in Santa Fe about how any new controls might unfold.
Corrales Residents for Clean Air and Water (CRCAW) has demanded for more than a decade that Intel’s air pollution permit from the N.M. Environment Department’s Air Quality Bureau be re-written to require continuous emissions monitoring, hourly and/or daily emissions limits and other controls.
The citizens’ group that organized in 1993 has repeatedly called for Intel’s permit as a “minor source” of air pollution be revoked and re-issued with tighter “major source” regulations.
The December EPA inspection at Intel by two Dallas officials and two consultants from Colorado was preceded by a January 29, 2009 formal letter to Intel initiating the agency’s investigation for compliance with the federal Clean Air Act.
Such letters are referred to as “114 letters,” indicating Section 114 of the federal Clean Air Act regarding regulatory action to assure compliance with pollution control requirements.
N.M. Air Quality Bureau Chief Mary Uhl said January 20 such letters “are typically tied to initiation of an EPA enforcement action. The ‘114 letter’ is a very detailed questionnaire about normal operations and changes you’ve made in your operations.
“It’s the way that EPA, for lack of a better word, gets ammunition against their target for an enforcement action.”
Uhl said she understood that EPA-Dallas wanted more frequent inspections and monitoring of Intel as well as  short-term limits on allowable emissions.