June 2010


What’s happening now... The Air & Waste Management Association’s 103rd Annual Conference and Exhibition (ACE) is in Calgary, Alberta, Canada on June 22-25 and Oris is there. Look for us at booth 421. Stop by and leave your business card because we’ll be raffling a free copy of BEEST, our most popular software package, among other neat prizes! For more information about the ACE, go to http://www.awma.org/ACE2010/. EPA Modeling Workshop EPA hosted its annual Regional/State/Local Modelers Workshop May 10-13 in Portland, Oregon. Discussion/presentation topics included new NAAQS modeling for PM2.5, NO2, and SO2; Federal Land Manager (FLM) and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) modeling issues; CALPUFF updates and comparisons; and of course, updates to the AERMOD system. For a complete set of the presentations, go to: http://www.cleanairinfo.com/regionalstatelocalmodelingworkshop/archive/ 2010/agenda.htm. AERMOD Update EPA is due to release a new version of AERMOD in June. Some of the improvements include: Allowing user-specified rank on the RECTABLE keyword for processing PM2.5 24-hour averages in order to accommodate recent EPA guidance for PM2.5 modeling. Incorporating design value calculations for the new 1-hour NO2 standard and new 1-hour SO2 standard. Adding a new MAXDAILY option on the OU pathway to output the summary of daily maximum 1-hour values for each day. These files can provide an interim output product that may be used to analyze new NAAQS based on a specified percentile rank of daily maximum 1-hour values. Modifying the debug option (DEBUGOPT keyword) to allow the user to specify debug output only for PVMRM or deposition options – this avoids potentially large MODEL debug files if user only needs PVMRM or DEPOS files. EPA is also set to release 1-hour NO2 modeling guidance to coincide with the new AERMOD release. A new version of AERMET will also be coming out, but no release date for it has been set yet. Changes will include ASOS data handling fixups, upper air data handling improvement, and improved portability of AERMET to non-US applications. You can be sure that as soon as EPA releases any new versions of AERMOD or AERMET, Oris will quickly update BEEST to accommodate the changes! NAAQS Updates On June 2, EPA promulgated a new 1-hour sulfur dioxide (SO2) NAAQS. The new standard becomes effective 60 days after being signed by the Administrator. The level of the new standard is 75 ppb and the form of the standard is the 3-year average of the 99th percentile of the annual distribution of daily maximum 1-hour average concentrations. For more information, see http://www.epa.gov/air/sulfurdioxide/pdfs/20100602fs.pdf For More Information... Call us at (512) 258-8855 Visit our websites: www.enviromod-u.com www.beeline-software.com www.beestxpress.com

EnviroMod University

Our next AERMOD Modeling for Permits class will be held July 21-22 in Chicago, Illinois. If you are new to air dispersion modeling or just need a refresher, come join us in the Windy City!

Calendar:

Jul 21 + 22

AERMOD Modeling for Permits

Chicago, IL

Sep 14 + 15

AERMOD Modeling for Permits

Raleigh, NC

Sep 16 + 17

Practical CalPuff

Raleigh, NC

Oct 13

Air Permitting Basics

Online

News From Bee-Line Software

PMPost released!

Oris has released PMPost post-processing program, which enables users to extract PM2.5 design value concentrations from either AERMOD or ISC output. PMPost follows the EPA guidance outlined in the March 23, 2010 memorandum from Steve Page, Director of EPA OAQPS, to the EPA Regional Modeling Contacts. (See http://www.epa.gov/ttn/scram/Official Signed Modeling Proc for Demo Compli w PM2.5.pdf) PMPost is free to all BEEST users currently in maintenance, but is also available for purchase for non-BEEST users.

BeestXpress

BeestXpress is Oris’ remote AERMOD modeling system. You already know that AERMOD takes longer to run than ISC. BeestXpress solves this problem! With the additional modeling needed for determining compliance with the new NO2 and SO2 NAAQS, BeestXpress provides you with the ability to finish model runs more quickly. Consequently, customers, clients, and stakeholders can be informed more quickly, rather than having to wait days for results.

BeestXpress allows users to partition an AERMOD run over up to 40 processors. These 40 partitions are then run in parallel on Oris high-speed processors. The net effect is dramatic. An AERMOD run that might take 24 hours on a single desktop PC can finish on BeestXpress in about an hour.

For those concerned about the acceptability of BeestXpress runs to regulatory agencies, check out our comparison studies between BeestXpress and the EPA SCRAM-based version of AERMOD: Support → Documents → AERMOD 09292 tests. These show that the highest difference anywhere, anytime between the two platforms is 0.01% or less. We guarantee that BeestXpress gives you the same answers as the EPA version of AERMOD, and in a fraction of the time. For more information on BeestXpress, see http://www.beestxpress.com/.