PORT TOWNSEND — An air-quality monitor in Port Townsend could be relocated to better gauge the particulate matter originating from the Port Townsend Paper Corp. mill, but the action won’t be fast or cheap.
“This is not a simple procedure,” said Dan Nelson, a spokesman for the Olympic Region Clean Air Agency — or ORCAA — which runs the monitoring system.
“Any movement of the monitoring equipment requires recalibration, and there are several restrictions as to where they can be placed,” he added.
The Jefferson County Board of Health has requested that ORCAA move the monitor from Blue Heron Middle School to either Grant Street Elementary School or Jefferson Healthcare hospital.
The March 15 request was to place the monitor more directly in line with the mill’s emissions and close to the city’s most vulnerable population.
The air-monitoring system will be used to measure particulate matter in the atmosphere and would determine whether there is an increase resulting from the operation of the mill’s proposed biomass cogeneration plant.
Nelson said his agency has received the Board of Health’s request and is taking it under consideration.
If it is decided to go forward with the relocation, it would take “several months” to do so, he said.
If a move were to occur, it likely would be sometime in early to late summer, the agency says on its website at http://tinyurl.com/7vywuwn.
Cost of relocation
The cost can’t be pinned down in advance, but Nelson estimated an amount between $10,000 and $20,000.
Adding a second monitoring station, suggested by the Board of Health as an option to relocation, could be as expensive as $50,000, Nelson said.
In response to the county health board’s letter — as well as other public requests to move the monitoring station — ORCAA is soliciting suggestions of locations where the monitor might be moved on its website.
Among the criteria listed as requirements for a new location:
■ Probe inlets should not be located above barren ground and should be located at least one-quarter mile from potential sources of dust.
■ Areas with excessive smoke from local combustion sources such as chimneys are unacceptable.
■ There must be no obstructions that would limit the sampler’s ability to collect aerosols representing the regional area.
The current air-monitoring station has been located at Blue Heron since July 1995 and was placed in that location because it was found to have the highest concentration of wood smoke in the area.
Several environmental groups oppose Port Townsend Paper mill’s $55 million biomass expansion project and Nippon Paper Industries USA Inc.’s $71 million cogeneration expansion project in Port Angeles.
Both will burn wood waste from logging sites and sawmills.
The Port Townsend project will create up to 25 megawatts of electrical power for which credits could be sold.
The Nippon boiler expansion, which is expected to be completed in early 2013, will produce up to 20 megawatts of electricity. The company could then sell credits for the electrical power.
________
Jefferson County Reporter Charlie Bermant can be reached at 360-385-2335 or at charlie.bermant@peninsuladailynews.com.
