EPA Ozone Regulations Affect Many Areas of the State

What do the new changes mean for NC counties? Nine On Your Side's Parul Joshi explains.

By: Parul Joshi | WNCT-On Your Side
Published: January 14, 2009

When it comes to the air you and I breathe proposed changes at the federal level could mean big changes at the local level. The Environmental Protection Agency has changed its ozone regulations but they haven't gone into effect yet, and that has left places like Pitt County in a kind of limbo. If a county does not meet the new rules, it could mean tough times ahead economically.

Pitt County is one of the many counties that could be on the wrong side of new EPA pollution standards. For years, Pitt County has met the Environmental Protection Agency's ozone regulations.

Pitt County Manager Scott Elliott says, "Being in attainment is a positive, good thing."
But Elliott says that could change.

In the past, the EPA said air quality across the country should contain no more than 0.080 parts per million of ozone. Elliott says, "Our average reading for the past 3 years has been 0.076 so in the past when the threshold you had to exceed was 0.080 we were fine."

But the EPA changed that last year to 0.075 parts per million which would put Pitt County into a non-attainment category, by 1-thousandth of a point.

Elliott says, "Non-attainment is when the stricter regulations are put on different factors and sections of the county."

Elliot says that change could affect how the county attracts new business and even plans by current industry in the county to expand. Since the air quality is so close to the EPA recommendations, Elliott is hoping that Pitt County could fall under an unclassified category.
Which would mean the county is o.k. And Pitt County isn't the only one with the problem, Charlotte, Rocky Mount the Triangle and Triad as well as Asheville are all on the list.