Notes From the WESTAR Technical Committee April Conference Call

Wednesday, April 21 at 2 pm MST (1 pm PST)

Committee members on the call:
Brock LeBaron - Utah Co-chair
John Coefield - MT Co-Chair
Stu Clark - WA- Council Liaison
Elton Erp - MT
Patrick Barickman - UT
Jeff Gabler -Westar
Gerry Guay - AK
Mike Ragan - WA
Stan Rowe - WA
Phil Allen - OR

Ken Rairigh - WY

Mike Sundblom - AZ
Mary Uhl - NM

Agenda:
1.) Report from the WESTAR Spring Business Mtg. - Director comments.
(Mary.U, Bob.L)
* Committee workplan
* Recommendations for O3 technical work
* PSD baseline database
2.) GIS Workshop planning (Jeff.G, Patrick.B)
3.) TEOM vs FRM for PM monitoring (Mike.R)
4.) WRAP forum reports - Emissions Forum and Modeling Forum (Lee.G, Mary.U,
Brock.L)
Report from the Spring Business Meeting
Bob Lebens forwarded comments by the Air Directors about the Ozone conference recommendations presentation. The director's would like the technical committee to prioritize the list and make specific recommendations to them to start working on the parts that we feel would provide the most immediate benefit. Brock suggested that a further review of available
ambient data with an emphasis on looking for data not found in the SLC presentation would be useful, most agreed. This will be an agenda item for the next call or so with an eye towards the June Council conference call for our suggestions.


Mary Uhl reported that the council had approved the GIS work shop plan, they are relying on us to handle the real-time/FRM issue, and that they would like more participation by the technical committee on STAPPA-ALAPCO working groups in the modeling, monitoring and emissions areas. Stu said that WESTAR travel support would be available for use in these activities. The
next meetings are in a few weeks and attendance at those would be a problem but Brock asked Stu to assure the council that the committee would make this a priority. This will be a regular agenda item in the future.

Mary Uhl reported that the director's are supporting the PSD database project and that she will be sending out reminders to the states that are not yet supporting the effort. She will be naming names. Mary will send a copy of the letter to the Co-chairs to pass along to the committee.

Stu reported that the council was interested in the benefit of utilizing the WRAP CMAQ modeling for the western Ozone modeling. Under discussion, it was thought that that would be problematic both because CMAQ has no track record for Ozone work and that UC-Riverside would be tied up for the rest of the year but that the input files would be a leg up once the current WRAP project is finalized by UC-Riverside.

Stu asked about topics for the Fall Technical Conference and mentioned NSR and PSD. Bob Lebens reported that the topic will likely be set during the next council call and that BART was the current front-runner.

TEOM vs FRM for PM monitoring
Stan Rowe passed along concerns from WA about the use of TEOMS for ambient monitoring for PM 2.5. They have a lot of money invested and see difficulties ahead in maintaining their network. EPA is requiring the use of co-located FRMs and real time monitors and they question which monitored number will be accepted as the real number (especially considering that there can be large differences). Elton Erp reported on the EPA R8 monitoring conference last week. There is a big push to make more use of real-time monitors but the FRMs will still be required. Gerry Guay and John Coefield feel that we need to have a meeting or workshop to share info on the use of real-time equivalents. Bob Lebens said that it would be possible. Brock said that we had included it in the workplan we presented to the council and that we should start planning. Gerry and John will discuss this issue further and report back at next call.


GIS Workshop Planning
Patrick Barickman and Utah are still taking the lead here with financial support from WESTAR. Patrick is looking for presenters from those states with active GIS workgroups. Brock called for volunteers, no takers yet. Patrick will send out an E-mail with details.

WRAP Forums

Brock reported that the EDMS Hardware and Software Development Plan was final and is posted on Pechan’s web site (http://www.pechan.com/edms/). The Alpha version of the EDMS will be delivered by the end of the month. The On-line Support Implementation Plan would also be available by the end of the month. Reminder of
the CERR emissions workshop in San Francisco May 11&12.
The next Committee Call was set for May 26th at 2 PM MST and the call was adjourned at 3:10 PM.