Background
Rule 1180 requires petroleum refineries to install and operate fenceline air monitoring systems to measure a comprehensive list of criteria pollutants and toxic air contaminants. For each applicable refinery, the rule requires the submittal and approval of a fenceline air monitoring plan that provides detailed information about air monitoring instrumentation, maintenance and quality control procedures, backup systems, auditing, and data reporting methods. All fenceline air monitoring plans shall be consistent with the Rule 1180 Refinery Fenceline Air Monitoring Plan Guidelines developed during the rulemaking process.
In August 2018, all refineries submitted to South Coast AQMD their draft fenceline air monitoring plans. Upon the initial review of the plans, South Coast AQMD staff determined that all submitted plans had major deficiencies. Staff worked with each refinery individually to improve the plans. As a result of this work, all refineries submitted their revised draft fenceline air monitoring plans which were made available for public review.
Following review and analysis of the public comments, staff worked with each refinery to modify their proposed fenceline coverage in order to address the concerns raised by the public. All refineries agreed to modify their proposed fenceline coverage by including additional open-path and point instruments, and South Coast AQMD staff determined that the revised fenceline coverages are adequate to satisfy the requirements of Rule 1180. Therefore, all refineries received partial approvals of their fenceline monitoring plans. Partial approvals are granted to the fenceline air monitoring portion of the plans only. The partial approval letters for each refinery are linked in Table 1.
South Coast AQMD staff has been working with all refineries on all other elements of the fenceline monitoring plans, namely: back-up monitoring and maintenance, data presentation to the public, public notifications and notification thresholds, and a Quality Assurance Project Plan (QAPP). The revised fenceline air monitoring plans for all refineries can be found in Table 1. below.
Plans are in review for approval consideration. Questions about the plans can be sent to Rule1180@aqmd.gov.