With the help of the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency (OEPA), businesses looking to move into high-pollution areas, also known as non-attainment areas, like Butler County, have a new resource for meeting agency pollution standards.
Two weeks ago, the OEPA launched a buy-sell Web site designed to help businesses who want to move into high-pollution areas locate available OEPA credits.
OEPA emission reduction credits (ERCs) are required for every new manufacturing company looking to move into a non-attainment area.
OEPA spokesperson Heidi Greismer said the ERCs must be purchased along with the company's OEPA permit.
"This makes it so when a new source opens, there's less pollution than there was before," Greismer said.
Credits for sale come from various sources, including businesses that improved their emissions rating or closed, Greismer said.
Greismer said that before the Web site, companies looking to expand into non-attainment areas had to look for available ERCs on their own or ask the OEPA about where to find available credits. Greismer said the OEPA's new credit banking Web site centralizes credit buying and selling.
Oxford falls in the Butler Country and Cincinnati metro zone and is one of Ohio's high-pollution areas in particulate matter and ozone. Once designated as a "non-attainment" area, meaning there is a high level of ozone and particulate matter, it is difficult for new industry to move into the area.
Greismer said the OEPA determines which areas are non-attainment by acquiring air samples every eight hours. Those numbers are then averaged. After three-years, the U.S. EPA looks at the fourth highest average for the zone and if that average exceeds U.S. EPA standards of 85 parts per billion of ozone, the region is marked "non-attainment."
Greismer said measuring particulate matter works in a similar process.
Each non-attainment area is allotted a certain number of OEPA credits to keep the area from surpassing certain emission standards, Greismer said.
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She said these emission standards are based on how polluted the area already is. A company's OEPA permit outlines the maximum levels of each pollutant the company is allowed to emit before being fined.
According to Greismer, 19 of Ohio's 88 counties are considered non-attainment areas for ozone pollution.
Greismer said the new Web site makes it easier for new industry to move into high-pollution, non-attainment areas by centralizing ERC seller postings.
Oxford Environmental Specialist David Treleaven said that while OEPA-facilitated trading will not greatly impact Oxford's small manufacturing industry, the change will be important for Butler County.
"If we go into a cap-and-trade based system, I think we're going to see a great boom in industry," Treleaven said. "The online system allows (business owners) to see what they're getting into by choosing one area over another."
Greismer said the OEPA claims no regulatory responsibility for the market-based prices on the listing site.
"In the past, without a program like this, trying to find credits was a lot more complicated," Greismer said. "A lot of other states have programs like this and we wanted to provide something like that to Ohio."
Once bought, the OEPA would verify the authenticity of the credits and permits before allowing a new company to move into the county.
Trelaven said the new OEPA online posting site would help ease company fears about the authenticity of the credits, and said before trading credits was like ticket scalping, without promise of OEPA legitimacy.
"The new system, as overseen by the government, takes away that accountability issue there," Trelaven said. "It takes away from that nagging fear-'Is this real?'"
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