U.S. EPA Environmental Technology Verification Program
Advanced Monitoring Systems (AMS) Center
Air Stakeholder Committee Teleconference
Wednesday, September 27, 2006
1:00 pm - 2:30 pm Eastern
Teleconference Meeting Minutes
AGENDA
Welcome, Agenda, and Meeting Objectives Gretchen Hund,
Battelle
Stakeholder Homework Question: Rachel Sell/
Sustainability, what does it mean to you? Stakeholders
Program Updates Amy Dindal,
• ETV Program Funding & Future Directions Battelle
• AMS Center Completed and Ongoing Verifications
Update on Technology Categories Tom Kelly, Battelle
• Personal Cascade Impactor Sampler (PCIS)
• Mercury Monitors
Potential Technology Categories Tom Kelly
• Semi-Conductor Industry Emission Monitoring - Applied Materials
• Particulate Monitoring
Hot Topics Gretchen Hund
Next Meeting and Action Items Rachel Sell
Adjourn
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ATTENDEES
Stakeholder Committee Members:
Ernest Bouffard, Connecticut Department of Environmental Protection
Jeff Cook, California Air Resources Board (CARB)
Rudy Eden, South Coast Air Quality Management District
Cliff Glowacki, TECHNIKON
Jerry Hatfield, USDA National Soil Tilth Laboratory
Roy Owens, Owens Corning
Lindene Patton, Zurich North America
Joann Rice, EPA/OAQPS
Donald Stedman, University of Denver
ETV AMS Center Staff:
Amy Dindal, Battelle
Bob Fuerst, EPA/RTP
Gretchen Hund, Battelle
Tom Kelly, Battelle
Rachel Sell, Battelle
Participants:
Kevin deary, California Air Resources Board
Philip Fine, South Coast Air Quality Management District
Welcome, Agenda, and Meeting Objectives
Gretchen Hund welcomed the committee stakeholders to the third AMS Center Air Stakeholder
Committee teleconference of 2006. She then proceeded with an overview of the agenda and took
roll call of those stakeholders participating in the Live Meeting teleconference.
Ms. Hund introduced a participant, Kevin deary, Program Manager of CARB's Innovative
Clean Air Technologies (ICAT) program. ICAT is a grant program that co-funds field
demonstrations of innovative emission control technologies that can reduce air pollution. Field
demonstrations have been expanded to include monitoring and measurement technologies. Its
purpose is to advance such technologies toward commercial application, thereby reducing
emissions and helping the economy of California. Following this introduction, there was a brief
discussion of the possibility of collaboration between ICAT and the AMS Center in technology
evaluations of mutual interest to both programs, including the technology from Applied
Materials (described under "Potential Technology Categories"). Rachel Sell provided a
stakeholder update. Geri Hart, CEVP Branch Chief, Environmental Management Division at
Tinker Air Force Base is no longer able to serve on the stakeholder committee; however
recommended Dr. Freddie Hall, also from Tinker Air Force Base, to serve as her replacement.
Dr. Hall was unable to participate in this teleconference; however welcomed the opportunity to
participate in the next ETV Air Stakeholder Committee meeting.
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Stakeholder Homework Question
Ms. Sell introduced a new topic on the agenda, a "homework question", which was sent out via
email prior to the teleconference. Stakeholders were asked to consider the topic of sustainability
and answer the questions: 1) what does sustainability mean to you or your organization, 2) how
can we make sustainability a part of ETV testing? Ms. Sell stated that sustainability is not only a
part of EPA's philosophy, but part of industry's as well.
Bob Fuerst, EPA Project Officer for the AMS Center, noted that EPA lists a formal definition on
their website and that sustainability seems like a balancing act of the growing economy and the
protection of human health and the environment, while not overlooking the next generation.
Stakeholders then provided input on what sustainability meant to them.
Stakeholders questioned if a technology could be compared against an industry metric, such as
the cost of the technology or the cost of labor in the field and stressed the importance of thinking
broadly when defining sustainable metrics. Amy Dindal, Battelle AMS Center, said that vendors
currently report to ETV how they are achieving sustainability, but asked if there was a way to
include sustainable type metrics into verification tests (e.g., report the volume of hazardous
waste, the battery life, etc.). These metrics would not be independently tested and verified (due
to resource and time constraints), but could be listed in their verification report. In response,
stakeholders indicated that other examples of sustainability criteria might include a description of
servicing intervals and types of power supplies used by the technology. Jerry Hatfield said that
from an agricultural perspective it would be nice to replace full time staff with remote sensing or
cell phone technology that reports back to a central location to provide service only on an as
needed basis.
Program Updates
Ms. Dindal provided an update on the ETV Program and AMS Center. Ms. Dindal and Mr.
Fuerst attended an ETV team meeting in Cincinnati, Ohio in early September. She said that
during the meeting, Sally Gutierrez, Director of EPA's National Risk Management Research
Laboratory (NRMRL), within the Office of Research and Development (ORD), said that
technology is one of the centerpieces of ORD's multi-year strategy and views the ETV Program
as a core competency within the technology area. The multi-year plan is located at
http://www.epa.gov/sustainability/releasepubcommt.html.
Ms. Dindal provided an update on the availability of the recently published ETV Program Case
Studies document available on the ETV web site. This document is the second volume in a
collection of case studies that document outcomes and benefits of the ETV Program. The first
volume was published in January 2006 and includes a case study on the ambient ammonia
verification test, while volume two includes a case study on the continuous emission monitors
(CEMs) for mercury verification test and immunoassay test kits for atrazine in water verification
test.
Regarding the AMS Center, Ms. Dindal summarized recent air, water, and water security
verifications that have either been completed or are in-progress. So far in FY06, verification
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reports have been completed for 18 technologies. Several verification reports will be completed
in FY07. Finally, Ms. Dindal noted that 15 verifications have been completed for rapid toxicity
testing of water, but none in soil. EPA's Office of Solid Waste and Emergency Response
(OSWER) is interested in this type of testing. Development of a generic protocol for a soil rapid
toxicity technology verification will begin soon. Following up on a question from Dr. Hatfield,
Ms. Dindal explained that the test is a rapid toxicity screen, based on live organisms, to indicate
the presence of toxicity in a sample. Toxicity in the sample is indicated by a color change or a
change in intensity; the screen does not report a quantitative measure or concentration of the
sample's toxicity. There were several positive comments from the stakeholders about pursuing
testing in the soil area.
Update on Technology Categories
Tom Kelly provided an update on technology categories currently in the verification process
using slides from a PowerPoint presentation available as part of the Live Meeting webcast. He
reviewed details of the verification test of Mercury Monitors at an Indiana facility this past
summer. Participating vendors included two CEM vendors, Thermo Electron and Tekran, and
two sorbent-based systems, Environmental Supply Company and Apex Instruments. Responding
to stakeholder questions, Dr. Kelly said that sample lines for the CEM technologies were
completely separate because the vendors performed their tests in two separate ways. Dr. Kelly
said that each CEM technology uses its own internal mercury vapor standard. Comparisons of
those standards against the NIST standard were not conducted. Dr. Kelly also discussed the
reference sampling that was conducted at the facility.
He then reviewed slides detailing the verification test of a Personal Cascade Impactor Sampler
(PCIS) for collection of ambient particulate matter (PM). In response to a question, Dr. Kelly
said that the PCIS flow testing simulated an unloaded (i.e., unrestricted) impactor, but also said
that each pump operated with a flow restrictor to mimic actual operation. Flow restrictions were
imposed to determine flow performance under a range of pressure drop conditions.
Potential Technology Categories
Dr. Kelly provided an update on the status of two potential technology categories. Applied
Materials is a vendor interested in the AMS Center verifying their technology for characterizing
air emissions using a Fourier Transform Infrared/Mass Spectrometer (FTIR/MS) instrument that
is incorporated into a mobile laboratory. Their main application is Semi-Conductor Industry
Emission Monitoring. Applied Materials is a California company; their technology could
potentially serve as a potential candidate for both an 1C AT demonstration as well as an AMS
Center verification. Stakeholders reconfirmed their concurrence with this technology category
which had been discussed during the last stakeholder conference call.
Dr. Kelly said that he was approached by MSI Mechanical Systems, a Continuous Particulate
Emission Monitor vendor interested in verification. Dr. Kelly said the MSI instrument measures
particulate emissions from a variety of sources under various conditions, including stacks with
changing particulate conditions and varying operating parameters. In addition, Thermo Electron
recently contacted the AMS Center to inquire about the possibility of a Coarse PM Monitor
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verification. Joann Rice mentioned that the new National Core Network (NCore) may include a
coarse PM sampling network. Following the teleconference, Battelle distributed an EPA press
release to all stakeholders on the new PM standards (fine and coarse). Stakeholder concurrence
for proceeding with these technology categories was received.
Hot Topics
Ms. Hund asked the stakeholders if they were aware of any new opportunities that the ETV/AMS
Center should be exploring, and when making a recommendation, to try to indicate the level of
importance or priority the technology category exhibits. She recognized that the AMS Center
could review earlier lists of technology categories recommended by the stakeholder committee,
but noted the importance of keeping an eye on future potential opportunities.
The stakeholder committee said to keep looking for soil vendors. Ms. Dindal noted the upcoming
verification for rapid toxicity in soil is a new verification in the soil area. Vapor intrusion was
discussed as a technology category of interest, as it has been raised at many previous meetings,
but Ms. Dindal explained that availability of vendor technologies remains to be an issue.
Dr. Kelly said that in instances where technologies have evolved or new technologies have
become commercially available, additional rounds of technology verification testing have been
conducted. An example of this is the mercury monitors test.
The stakeholder committee indicated that speciation monitoring was still a priority area of
interest and to look for interested vendors and partners. Dr. Kelly noted there had been a lot of
development in that area.
Next Meeting and Action Items
Ms. Sell said that one year had passed since the last in-person meeting in San Francisco,
California and that it was time to discuss a venue and date for the next in-person meeting. Ms.
Sell noted that Sacramento was ideal because it was close to several of the air stakeholders,
CARB, and EPA Region 9, making it convenient to obtain speakers and additional attendees.
Jeff Cook suggested the possibility of having the meeting or a tour at CARB. Stakeholders were
amenable to the idea of having the meeting in Sacramento. Ms. Sell suggested sending an email
to stakeholders to determine their availability for a meeting in the November - February
timeframe.
Ms. Sell reviewed the action items brought forth on the call:
1. Ms. Sell will send out an email to stakeholders to determine their availability for the next
in-person meeting. (Action completed after teleconference.)
Adjourn
Ms. Sell thanked all of the stakeholders for attending the meeting and contributing so much to
ETV. The call adjourned at 2:50 pm Eastern.
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