by jbs011309 j3 — January 14, 2009—The Environmental Protection Agency has given final approval to the Dallas-Fort Worth (DFW) Clean Air Plan for ozone, making the region the first in the nation to receive such an endorsement. Under the plan, ozone-forming pollutants will be reduced by 88 tons per day, and officials expect air quality in the area to meet the federal ozone standard of 84 parts per billion (ppb) by 2010.
EPA and the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality collaborated with businesses, governments, and communities from across the area to ensure the plan would achieve the needed ozone reductions. The Texas Emissions Reduction Plan (TERP) and AirCheckTexas program are together providing more than $100 million this year to help get older, more polluting heavy-duty engines and vehicles off the road.
Other ozone reductions in the plan came from work by the North Central Texas Council of Governments and emissions reductions from Dallas-Fort Worth International Airport and Love Field. Further reductions under the plan will come from controls on thousands of North Texas natural gas compressor engines, cement plants, power plants, and back-up generators used by business and industry.
The clean air plan, referred to as the State Implementation Plan, is expected to improve air quality by more than 55 percent over 1999 levels, which, in combination with previous plans, will result in a total of 409 tons per day of ozone pollution reduction.
For summer 2008, the DFW area had the lowest levels of ozone in three decades. In 2008 the area had 32 fewer days when air monitors exceeded the smog standard than in the late 1990s—a reduction of 78 percent, notes EPA.
