An innovative approach that was used to assess the air quality impacts of a large complex facility (Los Alamos National Laboratory) that has the potential to emit hundreds of toxic air pollutants in small quantities
- Parsons Brinckerhoff Quade and Douglas, Inc., New York, NY (United States)
- GRAM, Inc., Los Alamos, NM (United States)
The Department of Energy is preparing a Sitewide EIS for Los Alamos National Laboratory (LANL) as part of its evaluation of future use for the facility. An air quality analysis is required to estimate the potential impacts of the release of air pollutants from a facility that uses hundreds of toxic chemicals. These chemicals are currently used in 30 separately managed groups of operations or laboratory complexes--known as Technical Areas (TAs). Emission data and stack parameter information are currently not available. Undertaking an emission inventory, which would have been required for a conventional air quality impact analysis, would have been both costly and time consuming. An innovative and cost-effective methodology was therefore developed to assess the potential air quality impacts of the emissions of toxic air pollutants released from this facility. This methodology is based on the use of threshold emission values (TEVs), which are, for the purpose of this study, the maximum rates of each pollutant that could be emitted into the atmosphere from each TA that would not contravene health-related guideline values. TEVs unique to each TA were developed for each of the carcinogenic and non-carcinogenic toxic pollutants emitted from facility using EPA`s ISC3 dispersion model, and prototypical stack and building parameters. Once the TEVs were established for each TA, comparisons were made on a pollutant-specific basis between these values and conservatively estimated potential emissions rates that were based primarily on the purchase rates of these chemicals to identify those pollutants which may cause potentially significant adverse air quality impacts. This approach allowed over 95 percent of the toxic air pollutants to be eliminated from further consideration, and enabled the detailed analysis to focus on the remaining 5 percent.
- OSTI ID:
- 351151
- Report Number(s):
- CONF-970677-; TRN: IM9925%%313
- Resource Relation:
- Conference: 90. annual meeting and exhibition of the Air and Waste Management Association, Toronto (Canada), 8-13 Jun 1997; Other Information: PBD: 1997; Related Information: Is Part Of 1997 proceedings of the Air and Waste Management Association`s 90. annual meeting and exhibition; PB: [7000] p.
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
Similar Records
Air Dispersion Modeling for the Idaho National Laboratory Permit to Construct P-2015.0023 Facility Emission Cap Revision Request
Indoor air pollutants from unvented kerosene-heater emissions in mobile homes: Studies on particles, semivolatile organics, carbon monoxide, and mutagenicity