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

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SPod Siganl at S1 and S8 (cts)

1,3-

Buta

dien

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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)

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2001 2002 2003 2004 2005 2017/2018

Stac

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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