600/A-98-050
Verification of Advanced Air
Monitoring Systems
98-WP77.03
Karen B. Riggs, Thomas J. Kelly, and Gretehen Hund
Battelle, 505 King Avenue, Columbus, OH 43212
Robert Fuerst
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency,
National Exposure Research Laboratory
Research Triangle Park, NC 27711
ABSTRACT
Battelle was chosen, through a competitive cooperative agreement, as the U.S. Environmental
Protection Agency's (EPA) partner in the Advanced Monitoring Systems (AMS) pilot, which is
part of the Environmental Technology Verification program. This pilot will verify the
performance of commercially-available technologies used to monitor for environmental
pollutants. The initial emphasis of the pilot is on the verification of air and water monitoring
technologies.
The pilot will include the development of standardized verification protocols and test plans,
independent testing of technologies, and preparation of verification test reports for broad
dissemination. The EPA goal of the verification pilot is to have it ultimately become self-
sustaining or "privatized" by operating on pilot-generated income (user fees) and other resources.
The AMS pilot was initiated in October 1997. During the first year of the pilot, Battelle has
recruited individuals to serve on two Stakeholder Committees, one for air technologies and one
for water technologies. These stakeholders will advise on the development of verification
protocols and test plans. They will also advise on the selection of technologies for verification
testing, and review the verification test reports. The committee consists of representatives of a
variety of groups including regulators (federal, state, and local agencies), regulated communities
(i.e., DOD, industry), technology users, professional and trade associations, environmental
groups, and financial groups.
With the guidance of the Stakeholder Committees and EPA, Battelle has been identifying key
needs for air monitoring technologies, developing technology screening criteria, and soliciting
for technologies to be verified. Verification protocols for key technology categories are also
being developed.
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An initial technology solicitation has been issued. Responses to the solicitation are being
screened and prioritized in order to select the initial technologies to be verified. Verification
testing of the first air monitoring technologies will begin in the fall of 1998. Additional effort in
1998 and 1999, the second and third years of the three-year pilot, will focus on privatizing the
pilot. By the end of the third year, Baftelle expects that up to 16 technology areas will be
verified.
INTRODUCTION
This paper describes a pilot program funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
(EPA) to verify, under predetermined criteria or protocols with adequate data quality assurance
procedures, commercially-available systems for monitoring air, water, and soil. The objective of
the pilot is to accelerate the acceptance of environmental monitoring systems in the marketplace
through verification and reporting of technology performance.
Battelle, EPA's partner in this effort, has established Stakeholder Committees, which will
provide advice to Battelle and EPA throughout the program. With the assistance of EPA and
these committees, Battelle has identified priority environmental monitoring needs and solicited
vendors with technologies that meet these priority needs to participate in the pilot. This paper
identifies the stakeholder affiliations and lists the priority monitoring needs identified by the
stakeholders. Verification test results are not included in this paper as testing of the first air
monitoring systems is not expected to begin until the fall of 1998. The benefits to vendors who
have their technologies verified under the pilot are described, including EPA funding to support
testing of the initial technologies verified under the pilot.
BACKGROUND
The pilot project discussed in this paper is a component of the EPA's Environmental Technology
Verification (ETV) program, which is nearing the midpoint of its five-year pilot period. By the
spring of 1998, all 12 planned ETV pilot projects listed in Table 1 will be under way. The aim of
the ETV program is to accelerate the acceptance of environmental technologies in the
marketplace, through objective verification and reporting of technology performance. Activities
in the 12 pilots will provide independent, quality-assured, third-party performance data, so that
potential users and permitters have a credible assessment of the technology. ETV is a voluntary
program intended solely to provide defensible performance data to the environmental
community. ETV does not intercompare, rank, approve, or disapprove technologies. ETV also
addresses only commercially-available technologies, and does not support research or evaluate
prototype technologies. The ETV verification strategy is available as an EPA report (1) and links
to the pilot projects can be found at www.epa.gov/etv.
Each of the pilot projects is conducted by a "verification partner" organization in cooperation
with EPA. The partner organization is guided by a Stakeholder Committee, representing
regulated industries and agencies, EPA and state regulating agencies, technology developers and
users, consultants, environmental groups, and other interested parties. The Stakeholders advise
the verification partner on technology needs and developments, testing procedures, and outreach
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activities, and review test plans and reports. The products of a verification test are a report
stating quantitatively the performance of the technology, and, if the vendor wishes, a Verification
Statement documenting the test results.
In October of 1997, EPA, through a competitive cooperative agreement, selected Battelle, with
headquarters in Columbus, Ohio, as its verification partner for the pilot project on Advanced
Monitoring Systems (AMS). The scope of this pilot is deliberately broad, including monitoring
systems for contaminants in air, water, and soil, with air and water technologies of highest
priority at this time.
The timing of the AMS pilot is opportune, because of a move on several fronts toward
acceptance of a broader range of environmental measurement technologies. Most prominent is
EPA's move toward Performance Based Measurement Systems (PBMS) for environmental
monitoring. PBMS is a process in which the data quality needs or limitations of a specific
measurement program are used to select appropriate and cost-effective measurement methods.
PBMS offers much greater flexibility than EPA's current approach, in which measurement
techniques and instrumentation are prescribed for air, water, and soil analysis, and thus it offers
an opportunity for vendors of monitoring technologies to achieve greater acceptance of their
products. Implementation of PBMS within EPA is expected to take considerable time, and
currently there are no procedures established for achieving acceptance through PBMS. However,
the AMS pilot will conduct verification testing according to PBMS guidelines as they become
available, offering a cost-effective approach to PBMS demonstration. Some aspects of EPA's
PBMS approach, such as the importance of data quality objectives and quantitative method
performance, the evaluation of methods on actual samples, and the initial PBMS focus on
analytical techniques (as opposed to sampling or sample preparation) are particularly compatible
with the AMS pilot.
Other moves toward acceptance of new measurement methods include EPA's Advanced
Measurement Initiative (AMI), which supports internal development of new measurement
technologies (www.epa.gov/ami), and the Superfund-supported SITE program, which has
verified over 80 technologies for site remediation since its inception in 1986. Pressure to
develop new measurement technologies has come about from the lack of data on the hazardous
air pollutants listed in the 1990 Clean Air Act Amendments (2, 3), and the expected listing by
EPA of 71 biological, inorganic, organic, and pesticide contaminants for possible regulation
under the Safe Drinking Water Act (4).
ADVANCED MONITORING SYSTEMS PILOT
Scope
The objective of the Advanced Monitoring Systems (AMS) pilot is to verify advanced
monitoring systems for air, water, and soil. The scope of technologies that could be verified
under this pilot is deliberately broad. Air and water monitoring systems are the initial focus in
the pilot. Air monitoring systems could address ambient air, stationary source emissions, or
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indoor air, while water monitoring systems could address drinking water, surface water, ground
water, waste water, or sediment. Remote monitoring systems, field instruments, continuous
emission monitors, and laboratory analytical instruments could all be considered for verification.
Verification Process
The verification process has begun on the AMS pilot with the establishment of Stakeholder
Committees and the issuance of a Request for Technology (both described below). Vendors who
respond to the Request for Technology and whose monitoring systems meet minimum screening
criteria will be invited to complete and submit an Application Package that provides more detail,
and supporting data, on their systems. Battelle, with guidance from EPA and the Stakeholder
Committees, will evaluate the applications to select and rank the monitoring systems for
verification testing. Battelle will develop testing protocols and test plans, with stakeholder
advice and vendor review. The verification testing will then be conducted according to these
protocols and test plans.
The products of a verification test are a Verification Report stating quantitatively the
performance of the technology, and a Verification Statement, issued jointly by Battelle and EPA,
that summarizes the verification results. A vendor can use the Verification Statement to attract
prospective buyers of its technology by providing them with third-party quality-assured data on
technology performance under realistic testing conditions. The Verification Statement will also
be published on EPA's ETV website.
Stakeholder Committees
Battelle has recruited individuals from various organizations across the United States to
participate as stakeholders on the AMS pilot. Two Stakeholder Committees have been formed -
one for air technologies and one for water technologies. A listing of the organizations
represented by the stakeholders in each Stakeholder Committee is provided in Table 2.
Considerable effort was taken in forming these committees to ensure representation from all
parts of the United States, as well as from different organization types (i.e., regulated
community, federal and state regulators, financial community, environmental groups, technology
users, etc.). These committees may be augmented, as necessary, by technical experts in
particular technology areas who can provide more detailed advice during verification testing.
» Stakeholders participating in the AMS pilot have the following responsibilities:
• Assist in identifying environmental monitoring needs
* Review selected pilot documents
» Attend stakeholder meetings
• Review verification test results
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• Promote pilot benefits and use of verified technologies within their constituents.
Priority Technologies
At the initial meeting of the Air and Water Stakeholder Committees held February 23-24,1998
at Battelle in Columbus, OH, the stakeholders participated in a process to identify the most
critical technology needs facing the environmental community and their own organizations. In
addition, the stakeholders assisted in prioritizing the identified technology needs for verification
testing. Criteria considered in prioritizing the technology needs included:
• Technology must address a real and pervasive environmental monitoring need
• Multiple commercial systems to meet the need must exist that could be considered for
verification testing
• The commercial systems available to meet the technology need could be verified with
reasonable effort
The priority technology needs identified in this first meeting are listed in Table 3. Both the Air
and Water Stakeholder Committees independently identified a strong general need for
monitoring pollutants in the field, to avoid the time delay, high cost, and sample handling
involved with sending environmental samples to an off-site laboratory for analysis. This general
need is obviously reflected in the specific monitoring needs listed in Table 3.
In March, 1998, Battelle issued a Request for Technology to instrument vendors and
manufacturers with monitoring systems that could meet these priority needs. The purpose of this
Request for Technology was to identify vendors that were interested in obtaining verification for
their monitoring systems under the AMS pilot.
Vendor Benefits and Involvement
Vendors and developers who have their technology verified under the AMS pilot should expect
considerable benefit from participating. Potential benefits include:
• Increased credibility from having independent performance data
• Access to expertise in verifying monitoring technologies
• Possible reduction in the number of performance demonstrations needed to gain acceptance
from multiple states and municipalities
* Increased likelihood of regulatory acceptance and public recognition of technologies
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• Increased recognition in both national and international markets through promotion of
verification results
• Increased confidence for investors.
Vendors who have their monitoring system verified under the AMS pilot will be obliged to:
• Commit a commercial-ready system(s) for the duration of verification testing
• Provide operation and maintenance support during verification testing, if necessary
• Review and comment on test plans and verification test reports.
EPA funding will be available in the first three years of the AMS pilot (through September 2000)
to partially support verification testing as an incentive to encourage vendor participation and to
move the pilot towards privatization. Depending upon the complexity of verification testing,
vendors may be expected to pay user fees to supplement EPA funding during this pilot period.
Once the AMS pilot has been privatized, user fees are expected to fully cover verification costs.
REFERENCES
1. Environmental Technology Verification Program: Verification Strategy, EPA-6QO/K-96-003,
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Washington, D.C., February 1997.
2. Kelly, T. J., Mukund, R., Spicer, C. W., and Pollack, A. J., "Concentrations and
Transformations of Hazardous Air Pollutants", Environ.Sci. Technol.. 28, 378A-387A, 1994.
3. Mukund, R., Kelly, T.J., Gordon, S.M., Hays, M.J., and McClenny, W.A., "Status of
Ambient Measurement Methods for Hazardous Air Pollutants", Environ. Sci. Technol.. 2.9,
183A-187A, 1995.
4. High Risk Drinking Water Contaminants Identified, Environ. Sci. Technol.. 32. p. 15A,
1998.
NOTICE . -
The information in this document has been wholly funded by the United States Environmental
Protection Agency. It has been subjected to Agency review and approval for publication.
Mention of trade names or commercial products does not constitute endorsement or
recommendation for use.
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Table 1. EPA's Environmental Verification Technology Pilots
Pilot Scope
Advanced Monitoring Systems
Air Pollution Control Technologies
Drinking Water Systems
Global Climate Change
Independent Entity
Indoor Air Products
Pollution Prevention/Innovative Coatings
and Coating Equipment
Pollution Prevention/Metal Finishing
Pollution Prevention/Waste Treatment
Systems
Site Characterization and Monitoring
Technologies
Source Water Protection Technologies
Wet Weather Flow Technologies
EPA Partner
Bartelle
Research Triangle Institute
NSF International
Southern Research Institute
Civil Engineering Research Foundation (CERF)
Research Triangle Institute
Concurrent Technologies Corp. (CTC)
To be determined
State of California
Oak Ridge and Sandia National Laboratories
To be determined
To be determined
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Table 2. Organizations Represented by Stakeholders
Air Stakeholder Committee
Water Stakeholder Committee
World Resources Institute
California Air Resources Board
DuPont
Desert Research Institute
U.S. EPA
Ohio EPA
New York State Department of
Environmental Conservation
Ashland Chemical Company
U.S. Army
U.S. Air Force
South Coast Air Quality Management
District
Vorys, Sater, Seymour, and Pease
Arizona Department of Environmental
Quality
EPRI
Owens Corning
Environmental Business International
Zurich American Specialties
Emission Monitoring, Inc.
Gas Research Institute
American Petroleum Institute
University of Denver
Mid-Atlantic Regional Air Management
Association
U.S. Navy
Ohio Innovation Fund
American Petroleum Institute
Massachusetts Water Resources Authority
River Watch Network
Alcoa
Environmental Business International
National Groundwater Association
ECS, Inc.
San Francisco Estuary Institute
U.S. EPA
Port of Long Beach
Nebraska Department of Environmental
Quality
City of Colorado Springs
Northwest Mining Association
NOAA
SCDHS Office of Ecology
Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District
California State Department of Health
Services
WMX,Inc.
University of Nebraska
Ohio River Valley Water Sanitation
Commission
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Table 3. Priority Technology Needs
Priority Air Technology Needs
Priority Water Technology Needs
Real-time field instruments that can measure
participate matter in ambient air or that
correlate with the Federal Reference Method
for this measurement
Home test kits for measuring pathogens
(fecal coliform) or metals (lead, copper) in
drinking water
Real-time automated speciating volatile
organic compound monitors with sample-
tolerant inlets
Chemical-specific field probes for
monitoring volatile organic compounds or
synthetic organic compounds in groundwater
Portable field NO/NO2 analyzers for small
sources (e.g., internal combustion units and
small boilers)
Real-time field instrumentation for
monitoring pathogens or synthetic organic
compounds in surface water
Real-time field monitors for measurement of
speciated organics and/or inorganics from
point sources
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