Re: Minutes - Oct. 18th, 2006 Conference Call

["Allan Ostrander" <ostranda@michigan.gov>]

Hello all, sorry but I forgot to post a message last week to the
listserver that I posted the draft EPA New NEI Taskforce documents on
RAPIDS Forum. The link is in Jon's Conference Call Minutes below.

Allan G. Ostrander
Environmental Quality Specialist
Michigan Department of Environmental Quality
Air Quality Division
Ph. 517-335-2717
ostranda@michigan.gov

>>> "Jon Dettling" <dettling@glc.org> 10/23/06 8:11 AM >>>

  _____  


Oct. 18th, 2006 Conference Call

 

Great Lakes Regional Toxic Air Emissions Inventory

Steering Committee Conference Call Minutes

 

Participants

Illinois: 

Indiana: 

Michigan: Dennis McGeen, Jim Lax and Allan Ostrander

Minnesota: Chun Yi and Dan Steber

New York: Carlos Mancilla

Ohio: Tom Velalis

Ontario: Cong Doan

Pennsylvania: John Hulsberg 

Wisconsin: Orlando Cabrera-Rivera

GLC: Jon Dettling

EPA: 

Other: Mark Young

 

Update from Mark Young on database layout

Mark has been working on developing a prototype data model based on
the
discussion at the Toronto meeting. He's been attempting to fit the
point,
area and mobile source data types into a single data model that can
accommodate each. Mark is hoping to have an initial version for review
as
early as next week. 

 

Orlando mentioned that he's heard something about a draft NIF 4.0. Mark
said
he had heard mention of that also. Allan mentioned that he has some
very
preliminary information on this but that he doesn't believe the EPA is
very
far along in releasing this. It could be a very long way from being
completed. Mark will try to keep up on this as it develops and will
look at
the current paperwork to see what differences are in the pipeline at
this
point. Allan will forward the information he has.

 

(this is now posted at http://glin.net/forum/view.php?site=glad 
<http://glin.net/forum/view.php?site=glad&bn=glad_rapids&key=1161272072>
&bn=glad_rapids&key=1161272072)

 

Chun Yi noted that the direction of the NEI data structure is very
different
than the original RAPIDS data structure, such as the ability to have
emissions without identified  release points. We may want to adopt some
of
these differences. Chun Yi thinks it would help if the whole group
looked at
the NIF documentation to see if there are other ideas we want to adopt
in a
new data model.

 

Mark commented that on the TTN website there is a page with accepted
codes
sets for EPA Data Standards. Mark will be attempting to keep up with
those
standards as much as possible. The group generally agreed with this.
Chun Yi
expressed a preference to comply with such standards. There are some
cases
that may need to be addressed in more detail in the future, such as
pollutant codes, geographic codes, etc.

 

Mark had a question about the use of tribal codes. He's already had a
brief
email exchange on this with Orlando and Jon. Tribal codes are now
required
for NEI, although it doesn't need to be defined for every record.
Mark's
question is whether all sources are located within a county or whether
some
are on tribal lands, but not within a county. 

 

There was some discussion as to how the tribes relate to the states
and
counties. This is a fuzzy issue, but it can generally be considered
that
they are similar to states in that they report directly to EPA.
However,
some  states also collect their data to include in their inventories 
or
report the data on behalf of the tribal entity . Orlando noted that in
some
cases they are more similar to cities. Mark said he thinks he can work
with
this information for now and can raise the issue again if the need
arises.

 

Orlando noted that there are some facilities in his state that are on
county
lines and one or the other county must be chosen. There is also the
case of
portable sources, which often present a challenge in determining where
to
assign these sources.

 

 

There has been some discussion previously on multi-year emission
inventories. Mark is attempting to come up with a design that would
store
multiple years' data. He is considering an approach where records for
sources, etc., would have an inventory code (e.g., EI1999) that would
define
which inventory it belonged to. This would have some benefits for
querying
and wouldn't introduce the complications of having start and end dates
for
sources that define which inventory years it pertains to. It is similar
to
having multiple databases, but all the records would be in the same
database
and tagged with an indicator of which inventory they belong to. The
inventory itself would therefore be the top level of the hierarchy. Of
course, maintaining separate databases for each inventory would still
be
possible with this approach.

 

Mark also mentioned the possibility of having the source type be more
hierarchical. For example, railroads (type L) could be a type of
non-road
data (type N). The hierarchy might follow some of the logic contained
in the
SCC/AMS codes. There was some concern about this because some sources
can be
categorized in multiple ways. Currently, these codes are not very
hierarchical and the codes don't exist within the database other than
as
values in the table; that is, there's no additional table that defines
them.
Tom noted that the SCC defines what type of source something is and it
can
just as easily be used in making reports to identify various
classification
of sources.

 

Mark mentioned that he anticipated publishing a draft database design
for
the group to look at as a MS Access file. Everyone was comfortable with
that
format. Mark should be able to send something by the end of next week.

 

Reference table updates

A set of new codes were approved at the recent meeting. Chun Yi has
put
together an import file and emailed it to the group. No one has
expressed
any trouble importing these.

 

BaP state updates - data changes due by end of month

Michigan has completed some updates and will be creating RAPIDS import
files. These include prescribed burning and wildfires. Some BaP factors
have
been loaded into MAERS. Some others are still being looked at.

 

Minnesota's updates are done.

 

New York's updates are being uploaded, with some help from Orlando

 

Ohio is done.

 

Ontario is done.

 

Pennsylvania will be working on theirs next week. John will talk to
Karen.

 

Wisconsin has completed their updates and they are all included

 

The final updates are due by October 30th.

 

Discussion of area source estimations - 2005

 

There was a brief discussion on the prospect of handling some area
source
calculations at the regional level for 2005. Jon pointed out that there
may
be several cases where this is feasible in that everyone agrees on a
common
methodology and emission factors. It would have some advantages in
terms of
work efficiency and consistency from state to state. It was pointed out
that
there were some source types where this approach probably will not work
well
due to differences in methodologies or input data. This would need to
be
considered on a per-source basis. Carlos pointed out that an important
first
step is to decide what area sources the group will inventory. We
should
agree on a certain set that everyone will inventory. We can then look
for
some that are best done at a regional level.

 

Jon has put together an initial query to determine what Area Source
SCCs
people are currently estimating. He'll add some more information to
this,
such as how many states are calculating each, and send this out for
discussion. Some states are already beginning to look at their 2005
calculations, so the group should move this discussion along quickly.
Chun
Yi mentioned that Suzanne may have done some work in looking at area
sources. It would be wortwhile involving her.

 

 

MDI Emissions

At the Toronto meeting, Chun Yi provided some information regarding
MDI
emissions. Jon has compiled a summary of the 2002 MDI emissions.
Compared to
the information Chun Yi provided, it appears there are some
significant
overestimates. Chun Yi said that she worked with the API group to
revise her
database for MDI and the changes were much lower emission totals and
more
sources included. The main rationale is that many facilities report
usage
for MDI rather than calculating emissions. Because the volatility is
fairly
low, this causes a large overestimate. The table Jon sent showed many
sources with hundreds to thousands of pounds. Orlando noted that
although
his 2002 data showed large emissions for this compound, the more
recent
reporting years have not had these large numbers. He will look into
why.
Chun Yi noted that the API is willing to do the background work on this
on
their own. Orlando noted that one needs to be careful to be critical
of
information offered by outside groups like this to make sure there is a
good
basis for their recommendation. Jon suggested contacting the API and
welcoming them to look at our data and report back to us on
recommendations,
as long as we are clear from the beginning that we may or may not
incorporate their changes, depending on our own assessment of them, as
well
as some constraints within our organizations (such as the difficulty
of
changing past data that has been reported on by facilities and
certified).
We would also want to make sure there is an emphasis on future
emissions
rather than past emissions so that changes made are permanent and
errors do
not recur.

 

Next In-person meeting

We did not set a date in Toronto for the next meeting. Orlando has
suggested
that the meeting could be held in Madison. The group was encouraged to
look
into the feasibility of traveling to Madison for the meeting prior to
the
next call. Orlando can help give some advice on travel arrangements if
needed. The dates would be late January or early February.

 

The next call will be November 8th.

* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
airtoxics is hosted by the Great Lakes Information Network:
http://www.great-lakes.net
To unsubscribe from this list: send mail to majordomo@great-lakes.net
with the command 'unsubscribe airtoxics' in the body of your message. No
quotes or subject line are required.
About : http://www.great-lakes.net/lists/airtoxics/airtoxics.info
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *