The North Carolina Department of Environmental Quality’s Division of Air Quality issued a permit modification Monday for Ecolab Inc., a log fumigation facility at the Port of Wilmington, to help alleviate congestion there.
Due to apparent supply chain issues, the facility has been unable to secure the equipment required under its existing air permit issued on Sept. 29.
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To avoid further congestion at the port, the state granted a time-limited modification to allow an alternate operating scenario using temporary stacks and fans with the daily methyl bromide emission limit set at less than 50% of the current permit.
Ecolab Inc. is required to comply with all operational limits, monitoring protocols, recordkeeping requirements and reporting requirements in its existing permit. The temporary operating scenario expires in six months. The permit modification also requires testing within 45 days of permanent equipment start up instead of 90 days.
Modeling of the alternate operating scenario indicates the facility will be able to comply with the existing permit limits as well as the Acceptable Ambient Level for methyl bromide in the state’s air toxics rule, according to the state.
A rule put in place Nov.1, 2020, established emission control requirements for log fumigation operations and amendment to the state air toxics rule added methyl bromide and established Acceptable Ambient Levels, or AALs.
The permit and other related documents can be found at https://deq.nc.gov/methyl-bromide.
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