December 24th, 2008: The Sentinel News
Staff and Wire Reports
Excerpt: The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency formally designated Cumberland County Monday as a county not meeting federal air quality standards. Elected officials in the designated areas have to come up with a plan by 2012 to clean the air and then implement it by 2014.
Elected officials in the designated areas have to come up with a plan by 2012 to clean the air and then implement it by 2014.
Jennifer McKenna, president of the Clean Air Board of Central Pennsylvania, wonders why it’s taking so long.
“I would hope they would do something sooner to bring our air quality up to compliance since our children and citizens are being exposed to dangerous toxic materials,” said McKenna, who helped form CAB in 2005.
In 2006, the EPA set new limits, called standards, for unhealthy levels of PM2.5, triggering a two-year process to identify which counties fail to meet the standards. With Monday’s official action, the EPA formally determines, or “designates” counties that fail to meet, or “attain,” the standards.
Those counties then fall into a classification of “non-attainment,” which triggers specific measures to be put in place to reduce emissions. Other counties do not have to comply with these requirements.
In south central Pennsylvania, Dauphin, Lebanon, Lancaster and York counties also received the designation.
Filed under: CAB in the News, Local News, News |
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