The Environmental Protection Agency took steps this week to get the state Department of Environmental Quality to assure that the Cabot Corporation’s Ville Platte carbon black manufacturing plant meets a 14-year-old deadline for reducing its sulfur dioxide emissions by 95%.
Carbon black is a material used in tires and other rubber products. The Ville Platte facility is about 60 miles west of Baton Rouge.
A Federal Register notice this week calls for public comment on EPA’s finding that a small area in Evangeline Parish around the plant remains in “nonattainment” of federal air pollution regulations because the state missed an April 9, 2023, deadline to meet federal sulfur dioxide limits that went into effect in 2010. If the finding is confirmed, DEQ will be given one more year to submit a revised plan to reduce the emissions, and then up to another five years to actually meet the emission reduction requirement.
"If the state does not provide an approvable plan, the Clean Air Act requires EPA to develop and issue a Federal Implementation Plan," which would have the federal agency overseeing required emissions cuts, said EPA spokesperson Jennah Durant.
Aerial view of Cabot Corporation's Ville Platte carbon black manufacturing facility. (Google Earth)
But both DEQ and Cabot say the Ville Platte facility will reach the goal as early as July 1, 2025. That’s the company’s latest estimate of when it will complete the installation of complex emission reduction features at the plant that were required by a 2013 settlement agreement with EPA that also included the company’s carbon black plants in Franklin, La., and Pampa, Texas.
The Boston-based company agreed to pay fines totaling nearly $1 million and complete pollution reduction improvements at all three plants, including improvements at the Ville Platte facility that now total about $250 million, according to the company.
That agreement also included reductions in particulate matter and nitrogen oxide emissions for all three plants, though they are not part of the “nonattainment” issue for the Ville Platte plant.
“This will be achieved by installing a wet gas scrubber system,” said a statement released by DEQ. “This facility is one of the last facilities to install controls because the company had multiple facilities, and the EPA set the compliance date for the facility based on the completion of controls at another facility.”
Cabot nonattainment area 1.jpg
According to Cabot’s annual report, delays were caused by supply issues related to COVID.
The DEQ statement said the company’s emissions will be reduced by 98%, as required by the settlement agreement, when the work is completed.
The portion of that agreement relating to Cabot’s Ville Platte plant was officially delayed in federal court filings twice, and then a third time after an agreement with EPA and the state that again allowed the company more time to complete the work.
Construction on the improvements at the Ville Platte plant began in 2019 and include both energy recovery systems and emissions control improvements, said Cabot spokesperson Vanessa Craigie.
“While the project has faced challenges due to significant supply chain disruptions and staffing shortages arising from the global pandemic, we have continued to make solid progress,” Craigie said. “We have engaged a local general contractor to expedite project completion, which we expect by mid-2025.”
Lawsuit: EPA lags in enforcing air pollution rules in Ville Platte, other poor communities
But information included in EPA’s Federal Register notice indicated that the emission reductions had not occurred through the end of 2022. It said the three-year average of sulfur dioxide emissions from the plant for 2020-2022 were 8,651 tons, which was more than the 2013-2015 average emissions of 8,469 tons.
A DEQ statement said reductions in those totals to the EPA-required levels will occur after the completion of the installation of the control equipment. The agency said it also has almost completed work on the state implementation plan update for the Evangeline area.
“We have been working with the company and EPA to develop a fully approvable plan. Complex modeling issues and EPA consent decree timelines have caused the delay, which EPA is fully aware of,” the DEQ statement said.
EPA warns Louisiana to cut sulfur emissions in St. Bernard Parish
EPA's filing is the second within a month targeting high sulfur dioxide pollution from a manufacturing plant.
On Aug. 16, EPA warned DEQ that it must adopt rules that would result in sulfur dioxide emissions from Rain CII Carbon's calcined petroleum coke manufacturing plant in Chalmette being reduced or federal sanctions might affect permits for new or expanded plants in the parish, or federal highway grants.
