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Accomplishments in 2009

During our 2009 Fiscal Year, NESCAUM and NESCCAF worked on a vast array of projects in support of our member states. Many of the projects culminated in technical analysis, published reports, and workshops designed to provide technical support to our member states or disseminate state-of-the-art information to state staff working on air pollution control issues. Projects worked on during the period are listed below by program area:

Climate and Energy

Hewlett Greenhouse Gas

Continue phases of the Hewlett-funded effort supporting GHG reduction strategies in the U.S. and Canada.

CT Greenhouse Gas

Develop a greenhouse gas inventory for CT including inventory design, data gathering, data analysis, and reporting results.

Hewlett Greenhouse Gas

Continue phases of the Hewlett-funded effort supporting GHG reduction strategies in the U.S. and Canada.

Energy Foundation and Hewlett Low Carbon Fuels Standard

Assess and design a regional low carbon fuel standard and identify potential regional strategies that may reduce the carbon intensity of fuels used for transportation and heating.

State Voices in Federal Climate Policy

Facilitate and direct the efforts of “early action” states to ensure that the interests of the states are effectively inserted into the national climate debate and, ultimately, federal policy.

Energy Efficiency

Continue multi-state energy task force to identify, evaluate, and plan for implementation of key policies and programs to enable the Northeast states to meet all electricity load growth though energy efficiency over the next decade.

US Agency for International Development/Indonesia

Develop a whitepaper on climate change assessment studies and identify potential scientific collaboration opportunities.

Adaptation

Coordinate and facilitate the regional effort to respond to the long-term changes in temperature, precipitation, and sea level due to climate change.

Packard Sustainability

Develop a sustainable framework to accompany a low carbon fuel standard in the Northeast.

Coalition of Northeast Governors Biomass

Evaluate regional consistency of biomass boiler/furnace emissions regulation in the Northeast.

Mertz Plug-in Hybrids

Examine the GHG implications of using plug-in hybrid and electric vehicles for compliance with a regional Low Carbon Fuel Standard.

Mobile Sources

Construction Equipment Retrofits: Retrofit diesel-powered rental construction equipment in the northeast states.
Energy Foundation ATV XIV: Support to fund work to reduce GHG and toxic emissions from motor vehicles using alternative technology vehicles.
Construction Project: Develop a construction industry diesel retrofit guidance document for Massachusetts.
Diesel Plan: Assess diesel PM2.5 emissions reductions in Massachusetts and determine whether existing regulations will achieve the reduction goal.
Low Emissions Vehicles (LEV): Provide services to assist Maryland in adopting and implementing the California LEV program.
Marine-Ferry and Tug Repower Project: Repower five marine vessels including three ferries operating in the Hudson River and two tugboats operating in Puerto Rico.
Camden CARE: Manage the implementation of a consent decree retrofitting heavy-duty diesel trucks and nonroad equipment belonging to the Camden County (NJ) Municipal Utilities Authority with emission controls.
SmartWay Clean Diesel Finance Program: Analyze potential diesel emission reductions and associated cost savings for trucking firms using loans to finance the equipping of their trucks with EPA diesel emission reduction technologies.
Transportation Study: Coordinate a peer review of EPA’s MARKAL (MARKet ALlocation) model and perform custom modeling runs using various scenarios to determine the impact of emission reduction strategies.
EDF Northeast Hybrid Truck Consortium: Work with the Environmental Defense Fund to recruit fleet operators who wish to purchase hybrid light duty trucks and investigate funding opportunities for the fleet operators.
Port Authority NJ /NY: Assess the potential strategies to control diesel emissions from gantry cranes at Red Hook Container Terminal and find funding to implement the optimal strategy.
Heavy Duty Vehicle Modeling and Biodiesel Testing: Measure various pollutants and fuel consumption for different blends of biodiesel in heavy duty trucks.
EPA P & W Railroad: Purchase and install seventeen auxiliary power units on locomotives based in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.
Transportation Lending Services: Analyze diesel emission reductions and associated cost savings for medium sized trucking firms or large bus fleets that would finance equipping their trucks with diesel emission reduction or retrofit technologies using community development lending services loans.
Ferry Repower Project: Repower eight marine vessels in Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont including ferries and tug boats that currently have Tier 0 engines and Tier-2 certified engines.
CSX Rail Road: Repower one vintage switch locomotive in the transportation rail fleet in New Haven, CT.

Science and Technology

Compliance Strategies for Ozone and Fine Particles Attainment: Evaluate the cost effectiveness and technical feasibility of controls for emissions of NOx, SO2, and PM2.5 from industrial, commercial, and institutional (ICI) boilers.
Contribution of Wood Smoke to Particle Matter: Test in-use PM emissions from outdoor wood-fired boilers (OWBs) in New England.
Determination of Sulfur and Toxic Metals Content of Distillate Oil: Quantify content of sulfur, mercury, and other air toxic metals (including vanadium and nickel in distillate oil (#2 fuel oil).
Acid Rain: Monitor long-term acidic deposition in Massachusetts.
Ambient Monitoring: Support air monitoring collection and analysis at Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection Laboratory.
MANE-VU RPO: Coordinate efforts for MANE-VU Regional Planning Organization (RPO), including coordination of the CAMNET and RAIN monitoring networks, calculation of visibility trends for MANE-VU Class I sites, modeling platform development and evaluation, control strategy identification, and quantification and assessment of resultant visibility improvements.
CAMNET: Record real-time images of visibility at a network of digital camera sites in the Northeast and provide images to the public via the internet at www.hazecam.net.
NYSERDA Multi-Pollutant: Develop an integrated approach to air quality planning by using MARKAL, REMI, SMOKE, and CMAQ models, and the BenMAP program to identify emission reduction targets in New York for ozone, PM, acid deposition, and climate change, assess the measures to achieve these targets, monetize the associated public health benefits, and quantify the regional economic benefits.
NYSERDA Commercial Boilers: Characterize the air emissions of small commercial wood-fired boilers and compare their emissions performance with oil-boilers.
NYSERDA GIS Mapping and Wood Smoke: Spatial model and monitor residential wood smoke across a non-urban upstate New York area.
NYSERDA European Wood Stoves: Provide technical assistance to testing laboratories during emissions testing of sample woodstoves in order to determine the technical validity of the results.
MERGANSER: Develop a regression-based mercury model for the New England states in a Geographic Information Systems (GIS) format. This MERGANSER (MERcury Geo-spatial AssessmeNtS for the New England Region) model will integrate recent atmospheric mercury-deposition models with many databases on mercury sources, mercury levels in fish and bird tissue, and ecosystem features that are associated with risk of mercury contamination in biota and humans.
Harvard Uncertainty Analysis: Develop an integrated uncertainty analysis framework and design effective communication strategies and techniques to convey these uncertainties to decision makers, using mercury as a case study.
Boston Black Carbon: Analyze black carbon (BC) and particulate matter (PM) data from multiple sites to better characterize the spatial gradients of BC as a marker for local mobile source aerosol, compare BC data from the Roxbury, MA to other sites to determine whether the decrease in BC levels seen in Roxbury is found at other sites, and evaluate the effects of mobile source aerosol reduction strategies in Boston.
CUECost Scoping: Perform a scoping study for developing an Industrial, Commercial, and Institutional (ICI) version of the Coal Utility Environmental Cost (CUECost) Model.
NPS Critical Loads: Facilitate state participation in an analysis of critical loads of sulfur and nitrogen to forests and lakes of New England and New York.
MOVES: Developing in-house capabilities of using the MOVES model for mobile source emission estimations.
MIT Climate Change: Evaluate the impact of joint climate and air quality strategies and policies on regional air quality as well as on resulting public health.
Mercury Assessment: Evaluate the current capabilities for controlling mercury emissions form EGUs and assess mercury continuous emissions monitors (CEMs), sorbent traps, and other control technologies and strategies.
Environment Northeast REMI: Provide modeling and analysis of energy efficiency investments in the Northeast using the Regional Economic Impact Model (REMI).
Universal Interface-Phase V: Update the universal interface (UI) to allow the uploading of permit, CEM, and stack testing data by the states to EPA’s enforcement data system.
New Jersey Air Toxics: Provide comprehensive assessment of priority air toxics in NJ based on analyses of ambient air toxics data in NJ, intercomparisons among existing ambient data, modeling, and inventories, and model validation of CMAQ with air toxics.

Other

Clean Air Communities: Various community projects designed to reduce urban air emissions.
Camden CARE: Reduce particulate matter in collaboration with the Camden Waterfront South Community Collaborative by installing retrofit equipment at the South Jersey Port Corporation.
Queens Clean Air Partnership (QCAP): Various community projects designed to reduce urban air emissions.
Northeast Diesel Collaborative (NEDC): Coordinate activities in seven priority areas: congestion mitigation and air quality, data & inventories, mandatory measures, construction, regional demonstration project, ports & rail, outreach & communications.
Training/Northeast States Clean Air Academy: Evaluate training needs of state air quality staff and offer high priority trainings to state employees.