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KANSAS CITY OZONE ATTAINMENT FINALIZED; NEWS EVENT ON DECISION, ACTION PLAN IS WEDNESDAY, MAY 11

Release Date: 05/04/2005
Contact Information:

Environmental News
Kim Olson
(913) 551-7458
olson.kim@epa.gov

NEWS MEDIA ADVISORY

May 4, 2005

KANSAS CITY OZONE ATTAINMENT FINALIZED; NEWS EVENT ON DECISION, ACTION PLAN IS WEDNESDAY, MAY 11

Redesignation of the Kansas City area to attainment under the eight-hour ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standard has been finalized. EPA will join the Mid-American Regional Council (MARC) at an open news media event Wednesday, May 11, at 10 a.m. to discuss the redesignation and what it means to the area.

EPA originally announced designations under the eight-hour ozone standard April 15, 2004. That action designated several counties in the Kansas City area as unclassifiable because EPA had insufficient information to make a designation of attainment or nonattainment.

EPA subsequently reviewed air monitoring data for the years 2002 through 2004 and determined that the Kansas City area had met the standard of 0.08 parts per million for ozone. The counties included in the redesignation are Johnson, Linn, Miami and Wyandotte in Kansas and Cass, Clay, Jackson and Platte in Missouri.

The Federal Register notice finalizing the redesignation was published Tuesday, May 3. That followed a 30-day public comment period during which EPA received no substantive comments.

MARC began working with Kansas, Missouri, local governments, industry, and other interested parties on a Clean Air Action Plan for Kansas City in early 2004. MARC and several of its partners, including the Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce, will host the news conference May 11 at the Discovery Center. Topics will be the redesignation and the action plan, followed by demonstrations of vehicle emissions testing and gas cap testing in the Discovery Center parking lot.

WHAT: Redesignation of the Kansas City area and the area’s Clean Air Action Plan.

WHERE: Discovery Center, 4750 Troost Ave.

WHEN: 10 a.m. Wednesday, May 11.

WHO: David Warm, executive director, MARC; Jim Gulliford, EPA Region 7 administrator; Ed Peterson, Johnson County, Kan., commissioner and chairman of MARC’s Air Quality Working Group and MARC’s Air Quality Group Forum; Pete Levi, president, Greater Kansas City Chamber of Commerce; Mark Snyder, chair of the Chamber’s Environment Committee; Bill Downey, president and CEO, Kansas City Power and Light Co.; and Cindy Kemper, director, Johnson County, Kan., Environmental Department.