EPA Nonattainment Air Permit Screener — NSR/PSD Siting Risk

EPA Clean Air Act nonattainment screener. Give it a list of coordinates and it runs a server-side point-in-polygon check against 11 EPA National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) pollutant layers — Ozone (1997/2008/2015 standards), Lead, SO2, PM2.5 (three standards), PM10, CO, and NO2 — and returns, for each point: whether it sits inside an active Nonattainment area, whether it's in an EPA-tracked Maintenance area, the matched area name(s), the classification severity (Marginal → Moderate → Serious → Severe → Extreme), the Federal Register designation citation, and a plain-English NSR/PSD permitting-risk flag.

A hit on nsr_psd_permitting_flag means a new or modified major stationary source at that location — an industrial plant, power plant, or large data-center backup-generation fleet — faces Clean Air Act Nonattainment New Source Review (NNSR): mandatory emission offsets plus Lowest Achievable Emission Rate (LAER) controls, instead of the lighter Prevention of Significant Deterioration (PSD) review that applies in attainment areas. It is one of the largest hidden cost and schedule risks in industrial and energy-project siting, and today it's checked one pollutant, one area map, at a time by hand.

One clean, billable row per asset — even for a clear site outside every nonattainment/maintenance area (a useful, valid result).

Who it's for

• Air-permit / NSR-PSD consultants — screen a shortlist of candidate sites for nonattainment exposure before scoping a permit application.
• Industrial, power-plant, and data-center siting teams — flag the single biggest hidden air-permitting cost gate before committing to a location.
• EPCs and project developers — batch-screen a multi-site portfolio for NAAQS classification and offset requirements.
• Phase-I ESA / environmental due-diligence — add a definitive nonattainment/maintenance data point to a site assessment.
• GIS & data teams / AI agents — enrich any coordinate list with authoritative EPA nonattainment status without hosting the polygon layers yourself.

Example input

{
  "assets": [
    { "lat": 29.7604, "lon": -95.3698, "label": "Houston, TX" },
    { "lat": 34.0522, "lon": -118.2437, "label": "Los Angeles, CA" },
    { "lat": 39.7392, "lon": -104.9903, "label": "Denver, CO" }
  ],
  "includeMaintenance": true,
  "maxAssets": 500
}

Houston returns in_nonattainment: true, pollutants_nonattainment: ["8-Hour Ozone (2015 Standard)"], worst_classification: "Serious", nsr_psd_permitting_flag: true. Los Angeles returns hits on two standards — 8-Hour Ozone 2015 (Extreme) and Lead 2008 — with worst_classification: "Extreme". A site with no nonattainment or maintenance designation returns clear: true and nsr_psd_permitting_flag: false.

Output fields (one row per asset)

asset_label, asset_lat, asset_lon, in_nonattainment, in_maintenance, nsr_psd_permitting_flag, worst_classification, pollutants_nonattainment, pollutants_maintenance, matched_area_count, matched_areas (full detail array: pollutant, area name, state, status, classification, NAAQS standard, Federal Register citation, designation date, EPA region, current design value), clear, note, error, disclaimer, source_url, checked_at.

A single point can match more than one pollutant standard (e.g. both current and legacy Ozone standards, or Ozone plus Lead) — the flat row rolls up the worst classification and every nonattainment pollutant name, while matched_areas lists each match individually.

Input options

• assets — array of { lat, lon, label }. Required to get results.
• pollutants — optional array of standard keys to restrict screening (e.g. ["ozone_8hr_2015","pm25_annual_2012"]). Leave empty to screen all 11 active standards.
• includeMaintenance — default true. Set false to screen only active Nonattainment designations and drop Maintenance-area matches entirely.
• maxAssets — safety cap on assets screened per run (default 500, max 2000).

Use as an MCP tool

This actor is callable by AI agents (Claude, Cursor, etc.) via mcp.apify.com. Its typed input (assets[]{lat,lon,label}) and field-level output descriptions make it a clean, chainable "is this coordinate in an EPA nonattainment area, and does it trigger NSR/PSD review?" tool for siting, permitting, and environmental-diligence agents.

FAQ

Is my site in an EPA nonattainment area? Yes — pass its coordinate and read in_nonattainment, pollutants_nonattainment, and matched_areas.

Does my project need Nonattainment New Source Review? nsr_psd_permitting_flag is true whenever the point is in an active Nonattainment area for any screened pollutant. New/modified major stationary sources in that area need emission offsets and LAER controls under Clean Air Act NNSR. Confirm applicability (source category, potential-to-emit) with the state permitting agency.

What does the classification mean? For pollutants with tiered classifications (mainly Ozone and some PM standards), worst_classification reports the most restrictive tier among the pollutants that hit — Marginal, Moderate, Serious, Severe, or Extreme — which drives the size and timing of the required offsets. Some pollutants (e.g. Lead) have no tiered classification; worst_classification is null in that case even when nonattainment is true.

What's the difference between nonattainment and maintenance? Nonattainment means the area currently fails the NAAQS. Maintenance means the area has attained the standard but remains under an EPA-approved maintenance plan — a redesignation-to-nonattainment risk still exists. Set includeMaintenance: false to screen only active nonattainment.

How current is this data? The EPA source layer is refreshed weekly from an internal OAQPS database, and it's the same authoritative source EPA's own Green Book uses. This is an informational screen, not an air-permit applicability determination — confirm with the state permitting agency or EPA Regional Office before any siting, design, or permitting decision.

Source

EPA Office of Air and Radiation (OAR) Nonattainment Areas and Designations ArcGIS FeatureServer (12 layers, 11 active + 1 revoked standard excluded): https://services.arcgis.com/cJ9YHowT8TU7DUyn/arcgis/rest/services/Nonattainment_Areas_and_Designations/FeatureServer