Post on 18-Nov-2021
Next Generation Emissions Measurement and Odor Projects in the
Rubbertown Area (Louisville, KY)Presenters:
Jane Spann, EPA Region 4 (Atlanta, GA)Ingrid George, EPA ORD (RTP, NC)
Rachelle Duvall, EPA ORD (RTP, NC)
Federal and EPA Citizen Science CoP WebinarThursday, February 27th, 2020
2018 EPA Regional Sustainability & Environmental Science (RESES)
“Community Participation in Classifying Odors from Air Pollution
Emissions”
2018 EPA Regional-State Innovation Project (RSIP)
“Multi-component VOC Sensor System for Fugitive Emissions and
Odor Identification”
General Overview• Project Team
– EPA Region 4– EPA Office of Research and Development (ORD)– City of Louisville Metro Air Pollution Control District (LMAPCD)
EPA Regional Applied Research Effort (RARE), FY17-19“Development and Testing of Next Generation Emissions
Measurement (NGEM) Systems in the Rubbertown Industrial District in Louisville, KY”
Main Project
Follow-onProjects
BackgroundRubbertown Industrial Area• Faces many unique challenges
– Control of ozone– Emissions of air toxics– Odors
• West Louisville Air Toxics Study (2001-2005) showed high concentration of air toxics in Rubbertown neighborhoods
• Significant efforts have been made to reduce air toxic emissions
– Strategic Toxic Air Reduction (STAR) Program implemented in 2005
Fugitive industrial emissions and odors are still a concern. Source: https://louisvilleky.gov/government/air-pollution-
control-district/rubbertown-air-toxics-risk-assessment
RARE Project Goals
• Goals– Deploy and evaluate NGEM
systems around chemical facilities in Rubbertown
– Understand levels of select volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and hazardous air pollutants (HAPs)
– Inform on source impacts to local community
– Use data for source location modeling and real-time visualization
SPod FencelineSensor (prototype)
Tricorntech NGEM Gas Chromatograph (GC)
Passive Sampler
0
100
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SPod Siganl at S1 and S8 (cts)
1,3-
Buta
dien
e (ap
prox
.) by
GC
(ppb
v)
Date (mm/dd/yy) Time (hr/min)
S1 MiTAP GC
S1 LMAPCD GC
S1 SPod
S8 SPod
S8 ACGS Aquired
5:55 AM
6:40 AM
12:05 PM
S8 MCGS Aquired
RARE Project Highlights
• Measurements indicate lower average concentrations for key HAPs compared to the previous WLATS study
• Two elevated 1,3-butadiene emission events observed using NGEM approaches
– LMAPCD auto-GC data was elevated for both events
– One event due to a known release from a facility in Rubbertown
• Provided 6 community update meetings throughout the project
– Helping improve transparency• Field work extended at Sites 01 and 08 for
the follow-on projects (RSIP and RESES)
0.0
0.5
1.0
1.5
2.0
2.5
3.0
3.5
4.0
4.5
5.0
2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2017/2018
Stac
ked
Annu
al M
edia
n Co
ncen
tratio
ns (p
pbv)
Year of Study
TolueneEthylbenzeneBenzene1,3-Butadiene
WLATS
RARE Project
Emission event due to known facility release*
*Thoma et al. (2019) Rubbertown Next Generation Emissions Measurement Demonstration Project, https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/16/11/2041
2018 RSIP Project
• Issue– Rubbertown is affected by odorous and air toxic
VOC emissions from nearby facilities contributing to serious odor issues
– Fugitive odor emissions are uniquely challenging to detect and identify
• Approach
– Develop a sensor-based VOC system combining several NGEM approaches to detect and identify fugitive odor emissions
– Deploy the odor VOC Emissions Tracker (oVET) in Rubbertown to quantify specific odorous air toxic VOCs
Lab Olfactometry
Field Olfactometry
Multi-component VOC Sensor System for Fugitive Emissions and Odor Identification
Source Odor Monitoring
Most odor measurements are still nose-based.
2018 RSIP project
Odor VOC Emissions Tracker (oVET)
Field GC
SPod
Optimized Can
Sampling
MiTAP Field GC – Inside View
Vinyl chloride Methyl Isobutyl Ketone1.3-Butadiene Perchloroethylene
Acrolein EthylbenzeneBenzene Butyl acrylate
Trichloroethylene StyreneEthyl acrylate Bromoform
Methyl methacrylate 1.3-Dichlorobenzene
VOC List
2018 RESES Project
• Issue– Rubbertown and many other communities are
impacted by odors from air pollution emissions– Some odors are due to HAPs and VOCs which
can contribute to ozone and particle formation– Persistent odors can be a nuisance and may
cause health concerns for impacted communities
• Approach– Develop a mobile app for reporting odors– Develop city-specific “odor wheels” with input
from communities– Remotely trigger odor canisters (based on app
data) to understand what is in the air
Community Participation in Classifying Odors from Air Pollution Emissions
March 20, 2018, Wave 3 NBC News
March 2, 2015WHAS11 ABC News
2018 RESES Project
Community membersmells an odor
User opens app and enters information
about the odor
Odor reports stored for users to view and sent to
agency that handles odor complaints
Remotely acquire an “odor canister”
located at different sites throughout a
community*
Compare odor reports to
measurements and provide information to interested parties
Benefits Detailed data set on odors Community engagement Increased transparency
Odor Explore App
* Based on user-provided reports. For example, if multiple users report the same odor at the same time, a canister would trigger.
Thank you!
Contact Info:RARE Project: Jane Spann (spann.jane@epa.gov)RSIP Project: Ingrid George (george.ingrid@epa.gov)RESES Project: Rachelle Duvall (duvall.rachelle@epa.gov)
• EPA ORD: E. Thoma, D. Whitaker, K. Oliver, S. Mukerjee, L. Nessley, B. Mitchell, T. Wu
• EPA Region 4: T. Bell, S. Good, N. Carlton-Carew
• LMAPCD: A. Cooley, B. Paris, B. DeWitt, D. Fountain, T. Lobb, B. Gary, K. Zimmerman,
R. Hamilton, M. King
• Louisville Metropolitan Sewer District: R. Burch, A. Novak
• Jacobs Tech: P. Deshmukh, J. Cansler, R. Logan, G. Wiley, A. Scott, T. Cousett
• Tricorntech: TK.A. Chou, D. Chung, T. Wu, S. Liu
• Enmet Inc: N. Davis
• EnviroSuite: M. Farquhar, A. Quijano, M. Scholl
• ARA Environmental: W. Tang
Disclaimer: The research described in this presentation has been funded in part by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under contract EP-C-15-008 to Jacobs Technology with portions of the research conducted by EPA and the Louisville Metro Air Pollution Control District under a memorandum of understanding for cooperative research. It has been subjected to review by the Office of Research and Development and approved for publication. Approval does not signify that the contents reflect the views of the Agency, nor does mention of trade names or commercial products constitute endorsement or recommendation for use.
Acknowledgments and Disclaimer