Abstract |
Pursuant to Section 112 of the Clean Air Act, the U.S. the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is developing National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) to control emissions released from the primary copper smelting operations. The purpose of this rule is to reduce the flow of HAPs from potential emission point within primary copper smelting facilities. Eighty percent of the HAPs released are lead and arsenic. The other HAPs include cadmium, cobalt, manganese, nickel, selenium, antimony, beryllium, and mercury. The facilities in the primary copper smelting source category are controlling HAP emission from their smelting operations, as required, to meet maximum achievable control technology (MACT) standards. There are seven facilities in the primary copper manufacturing source category, six of which are major sources. Since the proposal of this NESHAP, three of the six facilities have shut down. The seven facilities were owned by five companies when the NESHAP was proposed. Since then, the industry has consolidated so that only four companies own the seven primary copper smelters. According to the Small Business Administration size standards, none of these businesses are considered small. The total annual costs for this rule are $1.85 million. The share of costs to estimated revenues for the affected facilities range from a low of 0.004 percent to a high of 0.209 percent. Based on the facility-level cost-to-sales ratios, impacts of the NESHAP on companies owning smelting facilities are anticipated to be negligible. |