Notes From the WESTAR Technical Committee April Conference Call

Wednesday, May 26 at 2 pm MST (1 pm PST)

Committee members on call

Brock LeBaron - Utah – Co-chair

John Coefield – Montana – Co-chair

Bob Lebens – Westar

Jeff Gabler - Westar

Scott Archer – BLM

Gerry Guay – Alaska

Phil Allen - Oregon

Mike Sundbloom – Arizona

Mary Uhl – New Mexico

Steve Arnold – Colorado

Lee Gribovicz – Wyoming

Ken Rairigh – Wyoming

Terry o’Clair – North Dakota

Steve Weber – North Dakota

Martin Schock – North Dakota

Agenda:
1.) O3 Recommendations to the Air Directors (Brock.L, Bob.L)
2.) State concerns about IMPROVE siting (Bob.L)
3.) Workshop Planning
- GIS (Jeff.G)
- Continuous Monitoring (Gerry.G, John.C)
4.) WESTAR PSD subcommittee reports, EI and Methods of Analysis (Mary.U)
5.) WRAP Forum reports, EI and Modeling (Lee.G, Mary.U, Brock.L)
6.) STAPA/ALAPCO Committee reps (Bob.L, Brock.L)

1. Ozone Recommendation to the Air Directors

Bob Lebens reported that Steve Arnold (CO) was hiring a summer intern to Collect Ozone monitoring data. Steve came on the call late and reported that the project would be just the first step in what he saw as a multi-step program. This first step would involve contacting all of the western states and cataloging the samplers and any ozone episodes that they have measured over the last 5 years. He intends to characterize each as either a transport episode over which we have no control, a sub-regional episode due to sources extending out to about 200 miles, or as a local (urban) episode. The second step would be to identify the top 20 episodes in the past 3 years that are common across states. The third step would be to collect and analyze the data from the selected episodes.

Discussion followed: The group supports the approach and during the next Air Directors call Bob will ask the air managers to support the Colorado project and direct staff to help when approached for information on ozone monitoring in their state.

Brock asked for volunteers to form a sub-committee to focus on the rural ozone question. Mary Uhl (NM), Steve Arnold (CO), Phil Allen (OR), Mike Sundbloom (AZ) all agreed to participate. Mary will be the lead with Steve filling in as co-lead. Stu Clark (WA) was not on the call but had indicated in an email to Brock that WA would also help and that he would work with the air managers on this issue.

2. Improve Monitors

Bob Lebens is on the IMPROVE steering committee and asked for issues for next week’s meeting.

Gerry Guay reported that his staff had attended some IMPROVE training last year and recommended that other states do so. He is concerned that some sites are located in areas where they are influenced by local sources and cautioned other states to be sure to examine the sites in their states so that they would be aware of any concerns.

John Coefield concurred with Gerry’s points and emphasized the importance of the QA/AC efforts of the IMPROVE lab as the site operators were not monitoring experts and had little troubleshooting or problem recognition capacity.

There was concern about data timeliness and many felt that there should be more local meetings between the IMPROVE project and the states to review the data. Annual meetings were proposed.

Bob Lebens will carry our concerns (Scott Archer also) to the steering committee and will report back.

3. Workshop Planning

Jeff Gabler reported that the GIS workshop would be near the end of September and either in Salt Lake City or possibly at Snowbird. They have prepared a draft statement of purpose, which the committee discussed and agreed on.

Gerry Guay and John Coefield reported that the proposed real-time PM2.5 monitor workshop was planned sometime in November and they were looking at the Seattle area. Phil Allen suggested Portland as and alternative and reminded the committee of the PNWIS meeting there the first week of November. John and Gerry said they were planning on inviting equipment vendors to the workshop and pressing them for better SOPs and QA/QC planning. Bob and Jeff said that the agenda needed to be set in time for brochures to be printed up 2-3 months in advance. John and Gerry will keep working on this project.

4. WESTAR PSD Subcommittee Reports, EI and Methods of Analysis.

Mary Uhl summarized the current status of the WESTAR PSD working committees. On the technical side, there is a Fundamentals Group broken into an Emissions Inventory workgroup and a Methods of Analysis workgroup both focused on the best way to operate under the current regulations. On the policy side, there is a New Framework workgroup focused on how new, improved regulations should be drafted. The goal is to have consensus recommendations from the air directors to the EPA by February 2005. There will be a meeting the end of June. Westar is hiring Ross and Assoc. to facilitate consensus on the policy issues at that meeting. Mary said that the air directors envision handing the project off to the technical committee after the policy question have been settled for recommendations about implementation fairly soon after the June meeting. Bob Lebens said that it was probably going to be on the agenda for the Fall business meeting in October.

5. WRAP Forum Reports.

Lee Gribovicz reported on the recent EI meeting in San Francisco. The 2002 baseline emission data will be gathered and processed by the modeling center at Riverside (RMC) using the SMOKE processor early this summer. The source attribution effort is moving forward and that group has issued an RFP for contract help there. An improved source attribution (TAGGING) algorithm is being worked on by the RMC. The new harmonized regional haze and PM 2.5 SIP date is January 31, 2008.

6.) STAPA/ALAPCO Committee Reps.

As the meeting was going overtime, there was little discussion. This will be on the agenda for the next call. Brock will send out an E-mail to the committee asking for information of which states already have members on some of the STAPA groups.

Next call will be Wednesday, June 23 at 2 PM.