2007 APR Table of Contents

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Emissions Reduction Market System

Annual Performance Review Report - 2007

7  Distribution of Emissions

7.1  Geographic Distribution of Transactions

Table 7-1 summarizes the number of ATUs traded for each county.  It should be noted the total number of ATUs that appear to be leaving the nonattainment area is much higher than the total coming in.  This is mostly due to ATUs sold to general participants who do not reside in any particular county and who have not then traded those ATUs back into the area for use by a participant.  In addition, ATUs traded to special participants are counted as being “sold” but not “bought” because all such ATUs are immediately retired without being used in a particular county.  ATUs donated to ACMA would have a similar result as they are also not used in any particular county.  Similarly, the ATUs for excursion compensation did not come from any county.

Table 7-1:  ATUs Traded by County

the county.  The vast majority (over 5,000 ATUs) is due to 3M’s Environmental Management System Agreement which requires the source to donate half of their ATUs to a Special Participant.  Counties that show an increase also include sources purchasing ATUs to cover past compliance problems.  The history of ATUs traded by county can be found in Section 8.4.

During the seven years of the program, no pattern or trend in trading, in terms of ATU flow among the counties has emerged.

Table 7-2 provides a comparison by county showing baselines, allotments and actual reported ATU use.

Table 7-2:  ATU Comparison by County

The overall actual emissions in the nonattainment area and in all counties except Kendall were substantially lower than allotted emissions.  Kendall’s excess emissions are due to a small increase in emissions from the single ERMS source in that county.

Table 7-3 shows how many ATUs have expired and are being retained by county.  The percent expired and percent retained is calculated based upon the 2007 allotment.

Table 7-3:  Total ATUs Expired and Retained by County

Illinois EPA has utilized townships to look at ATU trading activity in more detail.  Specifically, the Public Land Survey System township locations were used.  Survey townships were chosen for a number of reasons, including their generally uniform size, unchanging historical borders and readily available population data.  The borders of other possible geographic units such as ZIP codes or census tracts could change due to factors not involved in ERMS.  A listing of the townships is given in Appendix A.

There are 61 townships with ERMS participants and a total of 118 townships in the nonattainment area.  Tables 7-4 and 7-5 summarize the number of sources in townships and the area of townships.

Table 7-4:  Number of Sources per Township

Table 7-5:  Township Areas

Table 7-6 summarizes trading at the township level.

Table 7-6:  ATUs Traded by Township

Tables 7-7 and 7-8 summarize the ATUs expired and retained at the township level of the entire nonattainment area.  The percentage given is for the number of ATUs that expired as compared to the number of ATUs allotted to the township in 2007.  See Appendix B for full details by township number.

Table 7-7:  Expired ATUs by Township

Table 7-8:  Retained ATUs by Township

To get a full picture of how the ERMS program works at a township level, it is necessary to look at the actual emissions rather than simply at trades.  Some companies had excess ATUs they could have sold if a buyer had been located.  Others may have chosen not to sell even if their emissions were lower than their allotments.  Illinois EPA compared the actual emissions reported by participants in each township to the baselines and allotments for those townships and used this approach throughout the remainder of the analysis.

Table 7-9:  Townships with Emissions Over Baseline Level

Figure 7-1 shows all participating sources and the five townships highlighted in yellow with an increase over their baselines.  Each township with an increase over its baseline has only one source.

Table 7-10:  Townships with Emissions Over Allotment Level

Figure 7-2 shows all participating sources in the NAA and highlights in yellow the seven townships which show increases over their allotments.  Figures 7-3 and 7-4 show the highlighted townships for both baseline and allotment comparisons and flag only those sources that traded.  Both of these maps show a single buyer or two in each of the affected townships that put that township over its baseline or allotment.

Every county, but one, and the nonattainment area overall showed emissions significantly less than both the baseline and allotment.  Appendix B contains the data from which all of the above information was obtained and a map showing actual emissions compared to the allotment.

7.2  Type of Source

Table 7-11 identifies sources by their two-digit SIC code for each source that took part in a trade.

Table 7-11:  Transactions by SIC Code

Table 7-12 provides the allotments for every SIC code which has a participant and that are being retained by sources in that industrial category.

Table 7-12:  Total ATUs Expired and Retained by SIC Code

7.3  Trends and Spatial Distributions of Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs)

This is the seventh year sources have reported their HAP emissions.  Area-wide emissions of HAPs show a downward trend since the first reporting year of 2001.  VOM emissions show a generally downward trend.  Emissions of HAPs by county can be found in Section 8.

Figures 7-5 and 7-6 show the previously mentioned townships and those ERMS sources that reported VOM HAPs in their SER.  While most of the townships in question do contain sources that reported HAPs, there is no geographic concentration of such sources.

To further examine any possible relationship between HAP emitters and those townships which saw an increase, Figures 7-7 and 7-8 show those sources which are both HAP reporters and also participated in a trade during the 2007 season.  As can be seen on those figures, there were only three ATU buyers out of these HAP reporters in highlighted townships.  All three of these buyers had a decrease in HAP emissions from 2006 to 2007.

Table 7-13 shows the total HAPs reported for each township.  It also shows the relative HAP emission density by looking at the percentage of HAP emissions compared to the total reported HAPs for the entire nonattainment area by ERMS sources and the net result of trading that took place in those townships.

Once again, the areas with the highest HAP emissions were not buying ATUs and increasing HAP emissions.  Furthermore, overall HAP emissions have decreased over the years for which data had been collected.  From this, trading does not appear to influence HAP emissions.

Table 7-13:  Reported HAP Emissions by Township