 |
 |
 |
Short notes on topics of current interest in air quality are posted on this page. A bibliography of Abstracts and Papers by Envirometrics employees is on the linked page.
News notes provide summaries of technical information on air quality and air pollution control. The following current notes are available: Envirometrics' Staff Receive Awards at PNWIS Annual Meeting Finding Air Quality Information on the Internet From the TTN directory you can reach the CHIEF site for emission factors; the EMC site for details on source test methods, even special methods; the SCRAM site for air quality models, modeling information and model ready meteorological data; the Best Available Control Technology (BACT) Clearinghouse; the Clean Air Technology site, with detailed summaries of available control technologies, and other useful sites. A database of determinations on PSD, NSPS and other regulation applicability questions that you can download and use on your own computer has been assembled by EPA Region 7. Ecology also provides links to the web sites of the Washington local air authorities, most of which contain copies of their own regulations and staff directories. Several contain excellent teaching resource materials. The Southwest Clean Air Agency site has handy lists of the federal Hazardous Air Pollutants and the Washington Toxic Air Polluants (go to the bottom of the page), air quality consultants and source testing firms. The Puget Sound Clean Air Agency website provides detailed information on their Climate Change project and links to other local climate change websites. The Oregon Dept. of Environmental Quality site provides information on its programs, such as details on how to apply for permits. Emission inventory data and other details about permitted sources can be found using a database of Oregon permits. Their air quality rules are available on the State Archives website. The website of the California Air Resources Board includes a wide variety of useful information, in addition to the usual rules and regulations, air quality data and staff directory. This site also contains their own BACT clearinghouse, a database of toxics emissions factors and information on their Diesel Risk Reduction and alternative fuels programs. The Bay Area Air Quality Management District provides a useful BACT/TBACT database. The Idaho Air Quality Division site provides air quality data, copies of permit application forms and the air quality rules. The Montana Department of Environmental Quality pages provide access to information about permits, planning and air quality data. The Alaska Dept. of Environmental Conservation air quality programs website posts information about permits and regulation changes currently and recently out for review, a downloadable copy of their air regulations and copies of the permits for all major sources in Alaska. The Air Quality program of the British Columbia Ministry of the Environment website has provincial codes and reports, including an extensive report on odour managment and regulation. Air quality data is located on a separate website. The Metro Vancouver air quality web pages include copies of their regulations for downloading (filter by GVRD and air) and current air quality data for sites in the Fraser River Valley. The Alberta Environment site provides information on their air quality and climate change programs. The Pacific Northwest International Section of the A&WMA ( PNWIS) posts information about both section and chapter meetings on its website. Copies of the presentations given to the most recent Annual Meeting and recent specialty meetings are available for downloading. The Institue of Clean Air Companies provides information on various control technologies and the products of their members. The American Meteorological Society website has information about its upcoming meetings and provides access to abstracts of all articles in all AMS journals since January, 1997. The American Chemical Society publications site provides searchable access to the past several years of their many journals. There is no charge to read the abstracts and individual articles can be purchased. Living on Earth, from National Public Radio, also offers in-depth audio articles on environmental subjects. Pollution Online focuses on the pollution control industry, with news, product announcements and a buyer's guide. Another useful magazine site for industry is the electronic edition of Pollution Engineering. An especially useful feature of this site is the ability to key word search for information from past issues. Some of the major search engines also provide annotated lists of useful websites with air quality information. Especially useful are the lists provided by Google and Yahoo. The Science.gov site provides links to many of the federal government websites that report on air quality research. The even more massive Global Change Master Directory, run by NOAA, provides links to an extraodinary volume of atmospheric research data. Good sites for information about chemicals include the National Institute of Standards Chemical Webook, the EPA IRIS database of toxicological information and the Centers for Disease Control ATSDR Toxicological Profiles. Information on odors and odor sampling can be found at the Odournet and St. Croix Sensory websites. The U.S. federal government operates both a voluntary registry and a mandatory reporting program . The voluntary program is run by the Department of Energy. It is the most flexible in the data it accepts. That website also includes useful tools for making calculations. A more tightly defined registry is the Climate Registry, a consortium of state and provincial governments. The Climate Registry has published detailed reporting protocols. Another important source of protocols and tools is the joint project of the World Business Council for Sustainable Development and the World Resources Institue. An extensive report on greenhouse gases emissions inventories and protocols is provided by the Pew Center. Another good place to get weather data from around the world is the U.S. National Weather Service home page. From there you can also access current satellite images of weather over North America. The Canadian Weather Office, in addition to current Canadian weather and forecasts, provides a useful simplified map of the weather systems in north American, including the current location of the jet stream. A comprehensive collection of current and archived weather data for Washington is available from the University of Washington Dept. of Atmospheric Sciences website. This site also provides access to maps of forecast Pacific Northwest weather patterns for the next 48 hours plotted from the UW's mesoscale model (MM5)output. The most extensive source of meteorological data for air pollution dispersion modeling is the U.S. National Center for Climatic Data. Lists with details of the type of data available from stations around the world can be viewed or downloaded. The site also offers a search engine which can locate weather stations in the U.S. by working down through the states and picking from a list of cities, from within a degree of a latitude and longitude or even a zip code. This will give you the station name and number, which can then be used to look up the details on the inventory list. Printouts of climatological records are available on-line for a limited number of stations but digital data must be purchased off-line. A more convenient, quicker and less expensive alternative source of digital data for stations in the western U.S. is the Western Regional Climate Center. Another source of digital data from weather stations all over the western U.S. is MesoWest. In addition to the EPA SCRAM website described above, meteorological data prepared for modeling is also available from the Lake's Environmental website. Combustion Calculations Spreadsheets Spreadsheets used in a recent project to compute the expected exhaust gas flows and estimated pollutant emissions from a coal-fired boiler and an MSW incinerator are available for downloading (about 38k). These spreadsheets calculate sulfur dioxide, particulate matter, and chloride emissions by mass balance and nitrogen oxides from emission factors. Calculations are included for the rate of urea injection required for approximately 50% NOx control, the amount of carbon injection required for mercury control, and the humidification water required for effective dry sorbent injection for acid gas control. Users are cautioned to examine the calculations closely as some details will reflect these specific projects. Extensive notes are provided on the spreadsheets. Odor Sampling Dilution Spreadsheets If a sampled source has water content much higher than normal ambient humidity it may be necessary to dilute the sample with dry air to reduce the humidity and comply with the sampling protocols. This reduces condensation in the bag during shipment, which might adversely affect the measurement of the odor. A spreadsheet recently developed by us to compute the amount of pre-dilution dry nitrogen is available for downloading (about 20k). The quantity of pre-fill nitrogen is determined by the spreadsheet from pre-sampling measurements of the water content of the source. It is placed in the sampling bags before going out to the sampling site. Both the reported Dilutions-to-Threshold and Persistency must be adjusted when reporting the results. (The olfactometric lab will report their data "as received".)
Employment | Weather | Search | Contact Envirometrics |
At the Annual Meeting of Pacific Northwest International Section of the Air and Waste Managment Association in Portland, Oregon on November 5, 2004 J.D. McAlpine and Mike Ruby received an award for the "best presentation" for their paper "