PORT ANGELES — By Friday, Olympic Region Clean Air Agency officials expect a $90,000 device to have been installed in the Port Angeles fire station that will monitor and provide data on ultrafine particles.
The monitor appears to be the first on the North Olympic Peninsula.
The study also will look at ultrafine particles from Port Townsend Paper Corp.’s $55 million, 24-megawatt biomass cogeneration expansion project, which is expected to go online in 2014 or 2015.
A timeline for the study focuses only on Port Angeles.
The monitor is part of an “aerosol characterization study” on ultrafine particles in the air in Port Angeles, including those that emanate from Nippon Paper Industries USA’s biomass cogeneration plant, said Odelle Hadley, the agency’s senior air-monitoring specialist.
She said the study will produce data on the composition and sources of the ultrafine particle emissions in the city and will be examined by University of Washington scientists.
Analysis is expected by next summer, according to the project timeline.
Nippon’s $85 million biomass upgrade project burns wood slash and other forest debris in a boiler that will create steam of about 900 degrees.
The plant, which has been burning wood waste in an upgraded biomass boiler for about a month and which is slated to go fully online mid-month, was unsuccessfully challenged by environmental groups.
The groups are concerned that ultrafine particles with a mass of less than 0.1 micron are emitted by biomass facilities. Such particles are not regulated and could have negative impacts on health when breathed, the groups said.
Port Townsend Paper’s expansion project also came under fire from environmentalists for similar reasons, leading to the delay from the original date of completion this year.
Nippon Mill Manager Harold Norlund was confident about the results of the study.
“The boiler is built to the latest design standard, and it is permitted by ORCAA,” he said.
“We think it’s time everyone moved on.”
The scanning mobility particle sizer that will be installed in Port Angeles is about the size of two computer towers placed side by side.
It will measure ultrafine particles while drawing air from the fire station roof.
Smaller than regulated particles
Ultrafine particles are smaller than the 2.5-micron particles that are regulated by state and federal governments.
UW scientists will give a presentation to the community when sufficient data has been collected and analyzed, Hadley added.
The chemical composition of wood smoke includes carbon monoxide, methane, benzene and chlorinated dioxins.
The steam created at Nippon will be used to make paper at the Japanese-owned company’s Ediz Hook factory, which also produces newsprint for the Peninsula Daily News and other publications, and to generate 20 megawatts of electricity that Nippon plans to sell.
“This is a great opportunity to address the concerns of citizens,” Hadley said.
“Research indicates [ultrafine pollution] does play a health role.”
Health effects
Biomass opponents could not agree more.
“We all feel on the anti side of this, that it is unfortunate we do not have regulations for ultrafine particles,” said Bob Lynette, a member of the biomass committee of the North Olympic Group of the Sierra Club.
“Obviously, there going to be a lot more certainly small particulates and a large plume, and I really doubt Port Angeles citizens knew what they were getting into.”
A 2000 research paper in a publication of the Air & Waste Management Association titled “Combustion Aerosols: Factors Governing Their Size and Composition and Implications to Human Health” had this to say about ultrafine particules:
“Ultrafine particles are deposited deep in the lung by diffusion and can enter the body through the layer of cells lining the alveoli (air sacks) of the lung,” wrote the authors.
Clallam County Health Officer Tom Locke said research on the impact of ultrafine pollution is scarce.
Expects no impact
“My expectation is there will be no impact” from paper plant’s emissions, he said last week.
“They are required to use the best available technology in terms of pollution control and particle emissions.
“They will be removing a majority of the particles from the exhaust air stream.
“That’s on the plus side of the biomass project, that people are required to upgrade pollution control devices.”
Coastal air flows that reach Port Angeles also provide another “protective factor,” Locke added.
Monitors of larger particles
ORCAA installed three new air-quality monitors in Port Angeles and one in Sequim earlier this year to gauge the impact of the cogeneration plant’s 2.5-micron emissions.
“They fairly well correlate with each other, even the one in Sequim,” Hadley said.
Those monitors will be placed in Port Townsend in 2014.
The Port Townsend mill’s biomass cogeneration expansion was expected to be online in July, but the company announced a delay after a state Court of Appeals ruling that sent a suit filed by five environmental groups to the state Supreme Court.
Gretchen Brewer, director of PT Airwatchers, one of the appellants, said a court decision is expected before the end of this year.
“We are in a holding pattern right now,” she said.
The appellants want an environmental-impact statement to be conducted before Port Townsend Paper begins building its expanded cogenerator.
Since January, Hadley said, ORCAA has received three complaints that the complainants suggested were from the Nippon plant:
■ A Jan. 16 complaint of mill odors in Sequim was determined to be from Sequim gas company employees purging the company’s tanks.
■ A July 3 complaint for dust coating a boat at the Port Angeles Boat Haven was determined to be from log yard activity at the Port of Port Angeles and Nippon.
■ A July 9 complaint was about an odor near the mill. An ORCAA inspector did not detect wastewater or rotten egg odors but did smell a paper chip and turpentine odor that was not strong enough to be objectionable, Hadley said.
The Port Angeles Police Department has not received any complaints, Chief Terry Gallagher said.
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Senior Staff Writer Paul Gottlieb can be reached at 360-452-2345, ext. 5060, or at pgottlieb@peninsuladailynews.com.