Accomplishments in 2010
During our 2010 Fiscal Year, NESCAUM 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
Greenhouse GasContinue phases of the Hewlett-funded effort supporting GHG reduction strategies in the U.S. and Canada.
CT Greenhouse GasDevelop a greenhouse gas inventory for CT including inventory design, data gathering, data analysis, and reporting results.
Low Carbon Fuels StandardAssess and design a regional low carbon fuel standard, identify potential regional strategies that may reduce the carbon intensity of fuels used for transportation and heating, and draft model legislation.
State Voices in Federal Climate PolicyFacilitate 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 EfficiencyContinue a 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.
AdaptationCoordinate and facilitate the regional effort to respond to the long-term changes in temperature, precipitation, and sea level due to climate change.
Climate Change MitigationPerform MARKAL (MARKet ALlocation) model runs to identify strategies and technologies that could be implemented in various regions to mitigate climate change.
MIT Climate ChangeEvaluate the impact of joint climate and air quality strategies and policies on regional air quality as well as on resulting public health.
Mobile Sources
Construction Equipment RetrofitsRetrofit diesel-powered rental construction equipment in the northeast states.
Energy Foundation Advanced Technology VehiclesSupport to fund work to reduce GHG and toxic emissions from motor vehicles using alternative technology vehicles.
MA Construction ProjectDevelop a construction industry diesel retrofit guidance document for Massachusetts.
MA Diesel PlanAssess diesel PM2.5 emissions reductions in Massachusetts and determine whether existing regulations will achieve the reduction goal.
Marine-Ferry and Tug Repower ProjectRepower five marine vessels including three ferries operating in the Hudson River and two tugboats operating in Puerto Rico (US EPA Region 2).
Camden CAREManage 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 ProgramAnalyze 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 StudyCoordinate 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 ConsortiumWork 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 NY / NJAssess 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 TestingMeasure various pollutants and fuel consumption for different blends of biodiesel in heavy duty trucks.
EPA P & W RailroadPurchase and install seventeen auxiliary power units on locomotives based in Rhode Island, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.
Transportation Lending ServicesAnalyze 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 ProjectRepower 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 RoadRepower one vintage switch locomotive in the transportation rail fleet in New Haven, CT.
Hybrid TrucksFunding to fleet managers to subsidize the purchase of new diesel hybrid trucks in exchange for early retirement of older conventional diesel trucks within the same fleet.
Railroad APUOversee the installation of auxiliary power units (APUs) on twenty-nine locomotives located throughout New England.
Crane RepowerRepower a fleet of sixteen gantry cranes located in NY from their current unregulated, 2-stroke diesel generator set configuration to a modern 4-stroke, EPA certified Tier-3 diesel generator set configuration.
Diesel Emission Reduction ProgramManage a Massachusetts rebate program that encourages partnerships between owners / operators of diesel equipment and vendors of emissions control technologies and services to reduce equipment emissions.
South Jersey PortManage a project located in Camden, NJ that will repower forty eight heavy duty non-road machines that operate at the South Jersey Port with cleaner diesel engines.
Science and Technology
Contribution of Wood Smoke to Particle MatterTest in-use PM emissions from outdoor wood-fired boilers (OWBs) in New England.
Determination of Sulfur and Toxic Metals Content of Distillate OilQuantify content of sulfur, mercury, and other air toxic metals (including vanadium and nickel) in distillate oil (#2 fuel oil).
MANE-VU RPOCoordinate 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.
CAMNETRecord 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.
Multi-Pollutant AnalysisDevelop 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 BoilersCharacterize the air emissions of small commercial wood-fired boilers and compare their emissions performance with oil-boilers.
NYSERDA GIS Mapping and Wood SmokeSpatial model and monitor residential wood smoke across a non-urban upstate New York area.
NYSERDA European Wood StovesProvide technical assistance to testing laboratories during emissions testing of sample woodstoves in order to determine the technical validity of the results.
NYSERDA Home Heating OilAnalyze the trace metals (e.g., mercury, nickel and vanadium) and sulfur content of distillate fuels used in the Northeast.
MERGANSERDevelop 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 AnalysisDevelop 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 CarbonAnalyze 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 ScopingPerform a scoping study for developing an Industrial, Commercial, and Institutional (ICI) version of the Coal Utility Environmental Cost (CUECost) Model.
Critical LoadsFacilitate state participation in an analysis of critical loads of sulfur and nitrogen to forests and lakes of New England and New York.
MOVESDevelop in-house capabilities of using the MOVES model for mobile source emission estimations.
Universal Interface-Phase VUpdate the universal interface (UI) to allow the uploading of permit, CEM, and stack testing data by the states to U.S. EPA’s enforcement data system.
New Jersey Air ToxicsProvide 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.
Mercury Emissions Inventory UpdateUpdate the 2002 Massachusetts state anthropogenic mercury emissions inventory.
Electricity ReliabilityAnalyze the potential impacts that pending environmental regulation may have on decisions to close older coal-fired power plants and the effect this may have on reliability of the power grid.
Other
Northeast Diesel Collaborative (NEDC)Coordinate activities in seven priority areas: congestion mitigation and air quality, data and inventories, mandatory measures, construction, regional demonstration project, ports and rail, outreach and communications.
Training/Northeast States Clean Air AcademyEvaluate training needs of state air quality staff and offer high priority trainings to state employees.
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