What is an Air Quality Permit?
- A permit is a regulatory document issued to a specific facility (piece of equipment or type of site) that contains legally enforceable requirements. An air emission permit spells out the process equipment (type of equipment used by a facility in its day-to-day operations), air-pollution-control equipment, and rules or regulations that apply to a specific facility.
- The air emissions permit also includes monitoring requirements, based either on the rules that apply to the facility or on the state regulators decision that certain monitoring requirements are needed to demonstrate the facility’s compliance with the permit limit.
What is a Permit by Rule?
- State air authorizations for activities that produce more than a de-Minimis level of emissions but less than other NSR permitting options.
- It is another method of controlling what you emit into the atmosphere from your operations. These are rules for facilities that will not make a significant contribution of air contaminants to the atmosphere if operated or constructed with certain restrictions.
- These certain restrictions come in the form of what construction is allowed, where it is allowed, what emissions limits, operation hour limits, limits on material use, distance requirements from public areas/ buildings, and height requirements for equipment like a flare, an engine exhausts, or paint booth vent stacks.
What are the emissions limits of the General Permit by Rule?
- The baseline rule for all TX PBRs : §106.4 General Requirements for Permits by Rule Total actual emissions authorized under permit by rule from the facility shall not exceed the following limits, as applicable:
(a)250 tons per year (tpy) of carbon monoxide (CO) or nitrogen oxides (NOX );
(B) 25 tpy of volatile organic compounds (VOC), sulfur dioxide (SO2 ), or inhalable particulate matter (PM);
(C) 15 tpy of particulate matter with diameters of 10 microns or less (PM10 );
(D) 10 tpy of particulate matter with diameters of 2.5 microns or less (PM2.5 ); or
(E) 25 tpy of any other air contaminant except:
(i) water, nitrogen, ethane, hydrogen, and oxygen; and
(ii) notwithstanding any provision in any specific permit by rule to the contrary, greenhouse gases as defined in §101.1 of this title (relating to Definitions).
For more information on air permit and PBR, contact OTA Compression.