The letter below was written to Virginia Lau of the BAAQMD by Don Fisher of Fisher-Nickel after attending one of the four meetings. This response targets and questions the cost effectiveness of the BAAQMD proposal. A number of other industry leaders including Christine Andrews of NRA were also in attendance to argue the merits of this wide ranging proposal.

November 14, 2006

Virginia:

We appreciate the openness of your group to discuss our technical issues with the proposed BAAQMD restaurant rule. For the record, I am documenting my comment on cost effectiveness.

Applying your estimate of $1100 per restaurant (annual cost amortized over 10 years) to the estimated 15,000 restaurants with Type I hoods in the Bay Area, the total cost would be $16,500,000. Dividing this by your estimated PM reduction of 212 tpy, one calculates a cost of $77,757/ton PM reduction. As expressed during the workshop, this does not appear to be cost effective when compared with established maximum costs (in the order of $6000) for Best Available Current Technology (BACT). Although you indicated that the high efficiency filters were not considered to be a BACT, one would hope that the cost effective criteria would not be that much higher for the abatement of restaurant PM.

Our calculations for the chain broiler, combining both PM and VOC reductions is in the order of $6000/ton, supporting the cost effectiveness of part of the rule.

We trust that our "cost effective" concern is shared by the district.

Regards,

Don (Fisher)

A more detailed Industry Technical Response was submitted to the BAAQMD on November 9, 2006. The Executive Summary is included below. For a complete copy of the report, contact dfisher@fishnick.com

BAY AREA AIR QUALITY MANAGEMENT
DISTRICT (BAAQMD)
PROPOSED REGULATION 6, RULE 2:
COMMERCIAL COOKING EQUIPMENT

Industry Technical Response (November 9, 2006): 

Executive Summary

This proposed rule seeks to control emissions from charbroilers operating in commercial food service facilities in the San Francisco Bay Area. During its final phase of development, the rule was modified to cover all Type I hood applications and food service equipment located under these hoods. This extension appears to construct a rule out of context with its original intent (i.e., to control emissions from charbroilers). The language of the rule not only defines a “high efficiency” filter, but also requires that these filters be required in all Type I hood applications, regardless of the actual emissions generated by the commercial cooking operation.

Given that the data referenced in the rule (UC Riverside, CE-CERT) shows PM10 emissions from appliances such as fryers and ovens to be at least an order of magnitude less than the emissions from broilers, the extension of the rule to substantially lower emissions by regulating all cooking equipment under a Type I hood is subject to challenge.

UP YOUR STACK applauds the efforts of Mr. Fisher and other industry experts to explain the impact of the proposed regulation.