Rule 4570 Confined Animal Facilities

Rule 4570 Confined Animal Facilities

The San Joaquin Valley Air Basin (SJVAB) is classified as an extreme ozone nonattainment area and a serious PM10 nonattainment area for the health-based air quality standards established by the federal Clean Air Act. The SJVAB is also classified as severe nonattainment for the California ozone standard and nonattainment for the California PM10 standard. This rulemaking project is part of the District's ozone attainment strategy. This project will seek to obtain as much emission reduction from the source category as is expeditiously practicable, technologically feasible, and economically reasonable, as determined by the District's Governing Board. The rulemaking project is also intended to satisfy the state and federal requirements identified above. The purpose of the rule is to reduce emissions of volatile organic compounds (VOC) from confined animal facilities (CAF's) within the SJVAB. The Draft Rule would affect large existing facilities and new large confined animal facilities exceeding the California Air Resources Board definition of a large CAF. This Draft Rule incorporates a flexible approach where operators would select measures that would reduce the affected facilities baseline uncontrolled VOC emissions by over 24% annually, depending on the type of animal housed at the facility. District staff estimates this reduction in baseline emissions would equate to annual VOC emission reductions of over 6,500 tons, for a daily reduction of over 18 tons per day.

Fresno, Kern, Kings, Madera, Merced, San Joaquin