News Release
For Immediate Release
Contact: Beth Gorman (520) 740-3343
Tucson, Arizona (November 7, 2006) Tucson, Arizona
- The Pima County Department of Environmental Quality (PDEQ)
is issuing an air quality permit renewal for the Brush Ceramic
Products, Inc. (BCP) facility. BCP is located at 6100 South Tucson
Boulevard in Tucson, Arizona. An air quality permit is a document
that contains specific requirements for the business to operate
in a manner that complies with air quality regulations. BCP is
being permitted for beryllium emissions. Stack tests of BCP emissions
have shown that the amount of beryllium that is released into
the atmosphere is well below the standard set by U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency. The new permit will be in effect for five
years, however, PDEQ will continue to track any changes that
occur in health standards for beryllium and will revise the permit
to comply with any new standards.
The initial process to renew the BCP permit began in 1999. Since
that time, PDEQ staff has continued to review and research the
comments received from the public. Staff has also met with individuals
who contacted the department to discuss the proposed permit requirements.
PDEQ has extensively revised the original permit to include greatly
increased reporting requirements, increased monitoring and record
keeping, more rigorous operation and maintenance procedures,
an emissions prevention plan, and many other requirements. The
new permit contains much stricter requirements than the original
permit and will provide additional information to PDEQ to verify
BCP’s compliance with its permit.
In addition to the new permit requirements, a voluntary agreement
has been negotiated with BCP to cover some of the costs of increased
air quality monitoring near the facility. With this agreement,
there will be a total of six air quality monitoring sites to
test the ambient air for beryllium near BCP. The filters collected
from these sites will be sent by PDEQ to an independent laboratory
for analysis. As soon as it is received from the laboratory,
PDEQ will have the monitoring data available for public review
on the PDEQ web page at www.deq.pima.gov. The monitoring data
will provide information about the actual concentrations of beryllium
in the air that people breathe.
Sunnyside School District has been monitoring for beryllium
at four sites on school campuses near BCP for five years. The
equipment at these four sites will be upgraded as part of the
agreement and two new school sites will be added. The six sites
will be operated by PDEQ in conjunction with the Sunnyside School
District. To date, the results of the Sunnyside School District
monitoring indicate that, if detectable, airborne beryllium levels
are well below the EPA standard. In addition, a review of BCP
health impacts recently undertaken by the Arizona Department
of Health Services classified the emissions from the facility
as “No Apparent Public Health Hazard.” The increase
in the ambient monitoring will be in place of quarterly stack
emissions testing. BCP will still be required to do stack emissions
testing on an annual basis. PDEQ will also continue to perform
unannounced inspections of the facility.
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