Notice of Exceptional Event Demonstration Regarding the Ozone Exceedances at New Jersey Monitors due to the 2023 Wildfires

Take notice that the State of New Jersey is currently accepting public comments on its draft Exceptional Event Demonstration. This demonstration aims to exclude certain ozone monitoring data from April 13, 2023, June 2, 2023, and June 29 – 30, 2023, due to the impact of multiple wildfires on New Jersey’s ozone air quality. Wildfires originating from Canada and Midwest United States significantly affected New Jersey’s air quality during this period, however, small, local fires in New Jersey were also included as part of the analysis. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) conducted an exceptional event demonstration that analyzes the influence of the pollutants from the wildfires on air quality in the New Jersey portion of the Philadelphia-Wilmington-Atlantic City ozone nonattainment area (hereafter referred to as Southern New Jersey NAA.) The analysis considers the meteorological conditions associated with the exceptional events, as well as historical trends in ozone air quality at specific New Jersey air monitors. The analysis finds that in the Southern New Jersey NAA, the ozone air quality during the specified period would not have exceeded the ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) if not for the wildfire influence. Although, the wildfires also contributed to exceedances of the ozone NAAQS in the New Jersey portion of the Northern New Jersey-NY-CT Nonattainment area, New Jersey is not conducting an Exceptional Event Demonstration for this area because it would not change any regulatory requirements associated with that area. In this demonstration, New Jersey asserts that the specified dates qualify as exceptional events due to the transport of wildfire smoke, which led to New Jersey exceeding the 2015 70 parts per billion (ppb) NAAQS for ozone in the Southern Nonattainment area. The demonstration provides a description and discourse of the wildfires, comparison between event concentrations and non-event concentrations, establishment of clear causal relationship, satellite observations, wind trajectory analysis, visual photographic evidence, and demonstration that the exceptional event was beyond reasonable control or prevention and was a natural occurrence.

A copy of the Department’s proposed Exceptional Event Demonstration is available on the Department’s website at public-notice-and-2023-ozone-ee-demo.pdf (nj.gov).

The Department is only accepting written comments. Written comments may be submitted by close of business, April 27, 2024. Please email comment(s) as a document attachment to: NJDEP-BAQP@njdepwptest.net and include “2023 Ozone Exceptional Event Demonstration” in the subject line of the e-mail.

If you have any questions about this notice, you can email your questions to NJDEP-BAQP@njdepwptest.net or call the Bureau of Evaluation and Planning at (609) 292-6722.