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3 Area-wide Emission Status
3.1 Source Types
There are several different types of sources involved in the ERMS program as described below:
• Participating sources are those that have baseline or actual emissions of at least 10 tons
during the season, are required to have a CAAPP permit, were operating prior to May 1,
1999 and are located in the Chicago ozone NAA. These make up the vast majority of
sources in the ERMS program. They are required to hold ATUs for all of their VOM
emissions during the season.
• New participating sources have actual seasonal emissions of at least 10 tons, are
required to have a CAAPP permit, but were not operating prior to May 1, 1999. They
must hold ATUs for all of their VOM emissions during the season, but are not given
baselines. They must acquire their ATUs through trades or long-term transfer
agreements.
• Exempt sources are those which would otherwise need to be participating sources, but
have restricted their emissions in one of two ways. They may have used their CAAPP
permit to limit seasonal VOM emissions to under 15 tons/season or they may have
already reduced their seasonal emissions by at least 18 percent of their baseline.
• General participants are entities other than participating sources or new participating
sources who have obtained a transaction account and are allowed to trade ATUs.
Examples may included brokers or companies there were participating sorces but who
shut down their operations and still want to retain control of their ATUs. For the
purposes of this report, there are two different types of general participants. There are
those who used to be participating sources and therefore continue to receive an allotment.
The second group are those who were not previously classified as participating sources
and who never received allotments.
• Special participants are entities that register with the Illinois EPA to purchase and retire
ATUs, but not sell ATUs. Any ATUs given or sold to a special participant are
automatically retired.
