National  Tribal  Air  Association   

Hi there and welcome to the latest iteration of the NTAA website.  As you may have noticed, there has been a period of inactivity here, but that is soon to change. It is a steep learning curve to slip behind the curtain and begin to find out what all the levers and buttons actually do.

With the assistance of the U.S. E.P.A., the hosting for this website has been secured in order to prevent this place from "going dark," which is a slang reference to the shuttering of this web presence and a potential loss of the documents contained within it.  Thank you, EPA's O.A.R. for stepping up and helping out.  Pat Childers has been a great help, in his role as interim project manager as we sally forth.  You had big shoes to fill when we lost Darrel Harmon as our project manager, and you have done very well, sir.

As long as we are recognizing the contributions of those who are involved with the NTAA, then we must not forget about O.A.Q.P.S.  Laura McKelvey and Toni Colon are two strong allies who are assisting with our conference call logistics and hosting.  Thank you, friends, and also to your co-workers who help how they may.

And thank you to our friends Gina McCarthy and Janet McCabe for your continuous involvement and accessibility to the NTAA.  Sometimes, change can be a good thing, and we must rise to the occasions and opportunities that occur along the path.  It is not what occurs that matters as much as how one responds.

The NTAA Executive Committee also would like to say thank you to Jen Youngblood for continuing on even after your employment here stopped.  You have been a great asset to the NTAA, and your intrepid spirit in the face of many adversities all along the journey is an inspiration to us all. 

Thank you, Ken Cronin, for creating this professional website and for your offer to assist with the task of learning how to update the information etc on this site. Namaste, good man.

And thank you, Ondrea Barber, who has been a great presence and addition to the workforce of the NTAA.  It is a shame that each of our friends have had to seek employment elsewhere, but your presence on our calls is always welcome.  Your institutional knowledge is very helpful in the ongoing work that we attempt to do here. 

Each member of the Executive Committee does this work on a volunteer basis with no recompense: it is work that simply needs to be done. For your own commitment to this work through the NTAA, and your inspiring words and drive, I count myself fortunate to be among you.  As you can see by the high quality and dedication to the work ethic of those listed above, we stand in good company. It is the company one keeps that reveals the character one has inside.

Thank you for your continued interest and commitment, each of you, as we carry on in these interesting times.

---Bill T.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the U.S. Department of Justice announced a settlement with Wisconsin Public Service (WPS) that requires WPS to invest approximately $300 million in pollution control technology, pay a civil penalty of $1.2 million, and spend $6 million on environmental mitigation projects to resolve violations of the Clean Air Act (CAA).

“EPA is committed to protecting communities from the pollution problems that matter most, including reducing air pollution from the largest sources of emissions,” said Cynthia Giles, assistant administrator for EPA’s Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance. “The pollution reductions and the significant investment in local environmental projects under this agreement will ensure that the people of Wisconsin and neighboring states have cleaner, healthier air.”

Mining giant Cemex signed off on a mining prohibition for Jesse Morrow Mountain, officially ending the company's long and controversial push for a sand and gravel quarry in the Sierra foothills.

Company officials said last month they would restrict mining on their rural 2,000-acre property. But skeptics weren't sure the company would follow through on the pledge after 10 years trying to dig.

Cemex made the concession as part of a deal with Fresno County. In return for the mining prohibition, county leaders honored an unusual request: to rehear the company's failed environmental impact report for the originally proposed quarry.

Why Cemex wants to revisit the environmental report for the quarry when mining is no longer permitted on the mountain left many scratching their heads and critics thinking the company might still try to mine.

Federal environmental regulators gave Kansas a little more breathing room to comply with air quality regulations, agreeing that prescribed burns and drifting smoke from wildfires outside the state skewed the data, state officials said Thursday.

In a rare move, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency granted the state's request to exclude four days from April 2011 when calculating air quality data for parts of central and eastern Kansas that is averaged over three years.

The decision is important because the EPA could impose more stringent localized regulations for non-compliance, especially in places like Wichita that are already nearing maximum pollution levels. Such regulations affect the type of gasoline that can be sold, the kind of pollution-control equipment local industries would have to install, among other things, said Tom Gross, chief of monitoring and planning for the Kansas Department of Health and Environment's Bureau of Air.

And those additional environmental regulations don't go away even when an area later meets the EPA standards, because those regulations contributed to getting the area into compliance.