ASTM Committee D01 reports of January 2007 subcommittee activities

JCT CoatingsTech, June, 2007

Dates and Locations of Future D01 Meetings

January 20-22, 2008 - Fort Lauderdale, FL (Embassy Suites Hotel)

June 15-17, 2008 - Vancouver, B.C. (Hyatt Regency) with D02

January, 2009 - Fort Lauderdale, FL (Embassy Suites Hotel)

Mr. Salman moved on to Residual Risk for hazardous air pollutant standards. As specified by section 112 of the 1990 Clean Air Act, EPA has adopted national emissions of hazardous air pollutant (more commonly referred to as NESHAP or MACT) standards for about 100 source categories. Eight years after the adoption of a standard, the Act requires EPA to assess the effectiveness of each standard by evaluating the "residual risk" from a facility that complies with the standard. The risk and technology review (RTR) currently being developed is looking at 21 source categories including shipbuilding and ship repair, aerospace, and printing and publishing. The Agency is planning to publish an "Advance Notice of Proposed Rulemaking" in the Federal Register in the next few months to explain the process and to provide an opportunity for the public to review and comment on the emission data (2002 National Emissions Inventory data) that EPA plans to use in its analysis. On January 3, 2007, EPA proposed to rescind the once-in-always-in policy for hazardous air pollutant standards. That policy required that any facility that emitted sufficient hazardous air pollutants to be subject to a MACT standard must continue to submit periodic data on emissions regardless of subsequent changes to its operations. Under that policy, even if a facility ceased all use of such pollutants, it still must submit timely reports on its process.

H. Farr, SCAQMD, explained that after over four years as an analyst in the SCAQMD laboratory examining the VOC content of coatings using EPA Reference Method 24, she is now working to improve the test methodology for analyzing "low" VOC coatings. (The SCAQMD adopted new, more stringent VOC limits for Architectural and Industrial Maintenance Coatings that were effective on July 1, 2006.) As part of this work, the SCAQMD lab, in a joint effort with Cal Poly, performed side by side analysis of 13 samples using the new ASTM D 6886 (developed by Max Wills of Cal Poly). The results showed good repeatability and reproducibility even though the labs used slightly different procedures--SCAQMD used multipoint calibrations and cumulated all detected peaks as the measure of VOC while Cal Poly used a single point calibration and measured as VOC only those compounds with elution points up to and including Texanol. (Note from J. Berry: Such measure of VOC is inconsistent with the Federal Reference Method which requires that a sample be artificially "aged" (held at 110[degrees]C for one hour) to obtain a measure of lifetime emissions. As a result, there ultimately will be policy implications associated with final selection of test methods for its new, more stringent, regulations.)

The SCAQMD has recently released a draft of the 2007 Air Quality Management Plan (AWMP), our plan for attaining the Federal Air Quality Standards in the subsequent three years. Paint and other coatings are not a major focus of the plan but it does include a program for developing a "Clean Coatings Certification Program" similar to the South Coast's current "Clean Air Solvent" program. Rather, the AWMP will target reductions from industrial lubricants and consumer products.