Louisiana officials accused of inflating pollution monitor costs to kill idea aimed at industry

State environmental officials faced sharp questioning Tuesday for estimating that the total costs of requiring industry and other businesses to have “fence-line” air monitoring to detect pollution could run into the hundreds of millions of dollars.

State Rep. Alonzo Knox, a New Orleans Democrat, accused the agency of skewing the total figures upward by including smaller businesses such as bakeries, car washes and dry cleaners that he said aren’t significant enough polluters to need the monitors.

Knox, who grew up in the Baton Rouge community of Scotlandville near large polluting facilities, said including the smaller businesses in the cost estimate without any context would likely kill any future bills to require real-time, fence-line air monitors of major industries.

“Because here’s what happens in my world up here,” Knox said. “The way to kill a bill is to do a fiscal report with an exorbitant figure. That’s how we kill bills up here. And everything that you are presenting today is going in that direction.”

Knox is part of a legislative task force led by Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality Secretary Aurelia Giacometto. The task force was directed by the Legislature to examine fence-line air monitoring and issue a report with recommendations by February. 

During a task force hearing Tuesday at the State Capitol, Giacometto told Knox that the state’s estimates followed the directive of the Senate resolution that created the task force.

Sponsored by state Sen. Cleo Fields, D-Baton Rouge, and co-sponsored by Knox, the resolution directed DEQ to examine the monitoring cost for the nearly 500 facilities with Title V air permits, which are considered “major” based on emission levels.

She explained that the department is trying to remain objective and said that asking it to make distinctions between bakeries and other facilities that have major air permits is “very subjective.”

“The point is the resolution asked for all the Title V facilities and so that is the deliverable that we brought forward,” she said.

Though Giacometto focused on hewing to the Senate resolution’s directives, DEQ did not deliver one of the resolution’s other requirements Tuesday — the cost to the state of health impacts from long-term exposure to air pollution.

June Sutherlin, a consulting toxicologist for DEQ, said agency officials contacted the state Department of Health and were told that type of estimate would require more financial resources. The health cost was left unanswered.

Estimates of nationwide public health and other societal costs from air pollution have been significant. An analysis published in 2016 studying one group of pollutants put the figure at $1 trillion for 2005 alone.

Environmental advocates have long called for fence-line monitoring of major chemical and industrial operations, but bills from Fields to require it have failed to garner traction. The oil and gas and chemical industries have opposed them, citing cost and a fear that real-time monitors could provide false reads and unduly alarm the public.

Such monitors would come in addition to the state’s nearly 40 community air monitors and specific equipment-related monitors some facilities must have.

Under federal rules, oil refineries also have fence-line monitoring for benzene, and 53 facilities in the state will have to monitor a group of carcinogens by June 2026, DEQ officials said. Those monitors report quarterly, however, not in real time.

DEQ officials say fence-line monitoring for facilities that require a major air pollution permit would affect 476 operations across the state.

Based on DEQ estimates, the monitors would cost nearly $800,000 to install at each site and $150,000 to $200,000 per site per year to operate, plus $5.2 million to create a real-time notification system for all the facilities’ monitors for the public and first responders.

Assuming each of the 476 facilities uses only one monitor — bigger operations could use several — DEQ estimates work out nearly to $380 million in combined installation costs, plus up to $95.2 million in annual operation and maintenance costs. DEQ officials said those costs would be borne by businesses.

An industry estimate from a few years ago, which counted 532 facilities and estimated all monitoring sites, put the figure at $500 million to $1.6 billion.

DEQ has also said it would need another 48 employees and $8.2 million annually to manage all the data the monitors would produce. 

Giacometto cautioned against assuming that a causal connection exists between air pollution from certain businesses and health impacts, saying lifestyle, genetics and other non-pollution factors also play a role in cancer cases and other health problems in the state.

“A conclusion is being drawn that it is the industries and the emissions of certain industries or businesses that are leading to health conditions and, as was presented by Dr. Sutherlin, there are other factors that also lead to certain health conditions and cancer, and one of things that has not been discussed here are those,” she said.