Great Lakes Regional Toxic
Air Emissions Inventory
Steering
Committee Conference Call Minutes
March
7, 2007
Participants
Illinois:
Indiana: Jon Bates
Michigan: Dennis McGeen
Minnesota: Chun Yi Wu
New York: Carlos
Mancilla
Ohio: Tom Velalis
Ontario: Cong Doan
Pennsylvania:
Wisconsin: Orlando Cabrera-Rivera
GLC: Jon Dettling
EPA:
Other: Mark Young
BaP Report
A final version of the BaP report
had been sent for review. None of the states/province had any additional
comments at this point. Orlando has sent some
changes to the Wisconsin section text, which
will be included in the final version. The report will be released next Tuesday
(March 13th). Jon will revise the press release with the latest numbers.
The Paper for AWMA is due next
week. Jon will send a revision by Friday that incorporates the changes in the
numbers and figures and addresses the reviewer comments. It is still unclear who
will present at the EPA EI conference in North
Carolina. The group may need to withdraw the paper if
no one is able to present.
SPECIATE
There is a new version of SPECIATE
that has been released by EPA. Chun Yi participated in a call a few weeks ago
explaining the changes and updates. However, she missed the portion at the end
regarding its use for emissions inventory. Several people have attempted
downloading and using the new database and a few have had some troubles with
it.
Emission factor
table
There is a need to update the
regional emission factor table for inclusion in the new RAPIDS reference
tables. There are several files of emission factors that might be used as
starting points, including one recently sent by Chun Yi. The main priority at
this point should be on area sources to provide a database to use in quality
checks on the 2005 regional database.
There is also a need at some point
in the near future to address EF updates for point source generic factors. Tom
has been working with the FIRE database to process it for use in their system.
This has proven challenging. He's gotten some help in certain areas from Buzz
and Chun Yi, but may need some additional help at some point. Tom thinks that
for the generic factors, the FIRE database can be enhanced significantly.
Several other states have been making similar efforts.
Chun Yi's file that she sent
included some area source SCCs, but these were for 2002. It may need to be
updated in some cases.
There was a suggestion that each
state be assigned several categories to draft up a very brief summary,
following the outline that Tom has sent. Jon suggested that rather than that
approach, each person could send information on what SCCs and emission factors
they are using and he could prepare a cross-comparison to discuss in May. This
might result in the best overall product, by incorporating the factors
available from anyone. The group agreed to this approach and that people
should send a file similar to the RAPIDS .GEF file for their state that has
emission factors used. Jon can then compile these and find a way to format the
report to highlight some key areas of differences.
Cong asked about point source
adjustments and how this might affect the emission factors. In Ontario, for some sources
they use the provincial emission estimates for point and area sources to
determine a per-capita emission factor specific to that year that can be
applied. Carlos noted that rule changes since 2002 have resulted in new factors
for many categories. Orlando pointed out
that in many cases, the adjustments are done after the emission factors are
applied. If that is the case, the emission factor remains unchanged. The states
can report the emission factors and adjustments used, and decide if the factor
is applicable to the region or only to a specific area.
People should send their tables by
March 28th.
Lamp Breakage
Dennis sent a document regarding
lamp breakage and mercury emissions. This was extracted from a larger report
done in Michigan
in an effort to enhance the mercury inventory. A study was done within several
other states to develop a tool for estimating emissions from several
categories. Dennis has worked with a flow-diagram that was produced to do some
estimates for lamp breakage and some other categories. He will be summarizing
his thoughts on this in the next day or two and sending the spreadsheet to the
group.
Chun Yi commented that she has
encountered in the past that some tools like this divide the emissions among
breakage, recycling and within the landfill. These could be represented as
different categories and we should be careful about double counting.
Re-design Work
Plan
Jon sent a first draft of a work
plan for the re-design of RAPIDS, similar to what was discussed on the prior
call. This is a way of keeping track of various discussion items and
informational pieces regarding the program. It can be continually updated as
the programming evolves and can eventually feed into the system documentation.
In the meantime, it serves an important purpose of allowing the Steering
Committee members to use it to inform others in their agencies of the progress
of this work and the likely timeframe involved.
Chun Yi comment that likes the
document and wondered about some of the wording used to describe decision
making and whether this was a different approach. Jon expressed that he hadn't
really intended it to be different, but wanted to be clear that someone (the
GLC) is responsible making decisions and being accountable for explaining the
group direction, even if the decisions are largely a result of the group's
discussion. Jon will also check with the protocol to see if there is language
there that could be useful here.
Mark asked about new server and
whether documents like this could be housed there. Jon mentioned that he has
begun working with Wiki software for website relating to some other activities
at the GLC. It seems that this could be useful for a number of purposes for
this project. The Wiki could potentially replace several other group resources,
including the FTP, the "discussion board," and some of the listserv
and current website's functionality. Jon will start working on developing this
for the project with a goal of doing a demo at the May meeting.
Regarding the RAPIDS programming,
it was agreed that the import programming could likely be completed or very far
along by May. It was agreed that the RAPIDS 2.4 import feature was the most
urgent due to the need to get the repository data off of the old system, but that
the NIF import may be easier to do and would be useful in many cases for
getting information into the system. RAPIDS 3.0 will also need its own native
import format. Each of these should be pursued concurrently.
May Meeting
Agenda Items
Area Source Emission Factors
2005 Inventory
Project Wiki
RAPIDS import function
Communication with Bureau of Air
Wisconsin's Emission
Inventory System Demo and Web Based Emissions Reporting
Orlando will send info
on the Hotel: Best Western Inn on the Park. He needs a head count to reserve
rooms. There are some other hotels in the area as well and Orlando can provide information.