Network Monitoring Plan Approved September 9, 2013 Fort Air Partnership Network Monitoring Plan Table of Contents 1. General Information ........................................................................................................ 3 2. Monitoring Information……………………………………………………………………………………. ......... 8 3. Planned New Monitoring Projects…………………………………………………………………… ......... 10 4. Monitoring Network ..................................................................................................... 23 5. Monitored Substances .................................................................................................. 26 6. Monitoring Methods ..................................................................................................... 28 7. Data Management Practices…………………………………………………………………………… ......... 32 8. Additional Considerations for Continuous Improvement of the Existing Network ....... 33 Appendices: A. Continuous Monitoring Site Descriptions .......................................................... 34 B. VOC Analyte List ................................................................................................. 38 C. Redundancy Consideration of Network Parameters ..................................... 39 Page 2 of 39 Fort Air Partnership Network Monitoring Plan 1. General Information 1.1. The Need for a Monitoring Plan The Fort Air Partnership (FAP) is a registered not-for-profit society established in 1997 to operate an air quality monitoring network in a 4,500 square kilometer area northeast of Edmonton that includes Fort Saskatchewan, Gibbons, Bon Accord, Bruderheim, Lamont, Redwater, Waskatenau, Thorhild, and Elk National Island Park. In November 2000, FAP became the fourth airshed in Alberta recognized by the Clean Air Strategic Alliance (CASA). FAP is a multi-stakeholder group with members from industry, government, and the public. FAP members see the benefit of sitting down together and working through issues in order to fulfill its mission. The FAP Board holds monthly meetings that are open to the public. Decisions of the Board and its committees are made by consensus. Historically, the FAP monitoring network consisted of industrial fence line monitoring, the Alberta Government monitoring program at Fort Saskatchewan, and an Environment Canada program at Elk Island National Park. The primary monitoring objective was to ensure compliance with regulatory monitoring requirements of Alberta’s Environmental Protection and Enhancement Act (EPEA) operating approvals. Monitoring data was also compared to Alberta’s Ambient Air Quality Objectives (AAAQOs) and Canada-Wide Standards (CWSs). However, in recent years, the Airshed monitoring concept adopted in Alberta has shifted the focus from fence line monitoring to operating monitoring networks to gain a better understanding of regional air quality. The benefit of regional monitoring is that it provides the ability to measure the cumulative impact of all pollutants and their sources – not only regulated industrial emissions, but also non-regulated emission sources such as oil and gas drilling and agricultural and urban activities. This regionalization of monitoring will also allow for a more accurate comparison to ambient air quality standards such as AAAQOs and CWSs. In the future, ambient air quality monitoring will play a role in triggering air quality management activities and assessing the efficacy of those activities. At the same time, stakeholders in FAP are interested in emerging local issues, such as new facilities and regional development. It was recognized that the current monitoring network, consisting mainly of fence line monitoring locations historically placed due to industrial operating requirements, was not adequate to meet these evolving needs. Therefore, in 2011, FAP requested an independent network assessment to maximize the ability of the monitoring network to generate data in a cost effective and sustainable way to meet all of FAPs monitoring objectives. Page 3 of 39 Fort Air Partnership Network Monitoring Plan Sonoma Technology, Inc. (STI) completed an Evaluation of Fort Air Partnership Ambient Air Quality Monitoring Network report (STI Report) in 2012. This evaluation covered both continuous and passive monitoring networks located within the Fort Air Partnership that were in operation at that time. The STI Report found that the current FAP monitoring network is well suited for meeting some of its monitoring objectives and needs improvements to meet other monitoring objectives. STI made several recommendations in their report dated February 15, 2012. These recommendations were prioritized by their ability to (1) better meet multiple F A P monitoring objectives; (2) reduce unnecessary measurements; and (3) improve a single monitoring objective or emerging issue. The recommendations made in the Network Assessment Report are the trigger for the development of this plan. This plan will be reviewed by the FAP TWG annually to ensure it remains applicable and current. 1.2. Implementation and Timing Funding must be secured before this plan can be implemented. It is FAP’s intent to seek funding from a number of sources to enable implementation of this plan. However, it is projected that it will take several years before all changes in this plan are in place. FAP plans to address emerging issues through an annual review of the monitoring plan. After review it will be updated as deemed necessary with new timelines as appropriate. Other factors, influences and provincial governance of monitoring may also impact the implementation of this plan. Page 4 of 39 Fort Air Partnership Network Monitoring Plan 1.3. Authorities for Developing and Implementing the Monitoring Plan Figure 1: FAP Organizational Structure FAP Board Financial (public, Internal Audit industry, Committee government) FAP Executive Committee FAP Executive Director FAP FAP Network Communications Manager Director Technical Working Communications Operations and Data Validation Group (public, Committee (public, Maintenance Contractor industry, industry, Contractor government) government) Network Change Implementation Committee FAP assigned the development of a monitoring plan based on the recommendations in the STI report, and FAP’s monitoring objectives, to a subcommittee of the standing Technical Working Group. An ad- hoc Network Change Implementation Committee (NCIC) was struck. This ad-hoc committee consists of a subset of the Technical Working Group. This monitoring plan was developed by the NCIC, then reviewed and approved by the TWG for submission to the FAP Board, which provided final approval prior to the plan being submitted to ESRD. Network Change Implementation Committee Membership Harry Benders, FAP Network Manager Nadine Blaney, FAP Executive Director Jeff Cooper, Focus Operations Manager Michelle Poherliak, NCIA (Sherritt Metals) Wally Qiu, Alberta Environment and Sustainable Resource Development Ludmilla Rodriguez, Alberta Health Services Darcy Walberg, NCIA (Agrium Redwater) Joy Wesley, FAP Board Vice Chair (Public Member) Page 5 of 39 Fort Air Partnership Network Monitoring Plan 1.4. Fort Air Partnership Monitoring Objectives The monitoring objectives for the FAP network are: Understand spatial distribution of pollutants in the region. Identify regional air quality trends. Provide flexibility to characterize emerging issues, sources, and locations. Provide appropriate information for evaluating population exposure to ambient air quality. Provide information required to understand air quality impacts on the health of the environment. Improve the ability to identify and apportion pollutant sources for purposes of air quality management. Provide suitable input and validation information for air quality models. All projects in this monitoring plan are carried out under the umbrella objective of meeting current regulatory requirements for ambient air quality monitoring. Page 6 of 39 Fort Air Partnership Network Monitoring Plan Several projects were recommended in the network assessment to better meet FAP monitoring objectives. These projects and the correlation to FAP’s monitoring objectives are listed below. Table 1: Monitoring Objectives and Projects Objectives Meet current Understand Identify Provide Provide Provide Improve the Provide regulatory spatial regional air flexibility to information to information to ability to suitable input requirements distribution of quality trends characterize evaluate understand air identify and and validation for ambient pollutants in emerging population quality apportion information air quality the region. issues exposure to impacts on the pollutant for air quality monitoring ambient air environment sources for air models quality. quality Project management Gibbons X X X X X X X station Portable X X X X X X X X station Redwater Industrial X X X X X X relocation Scotford 2 X X X X relocation Organic hydrocarbons X X X X X X X sampling Upgrade PM2.5 X X X X X X technology Page 7 of 39 Fort Air Partnership Network Monitoring Plan 2. Monitoring Information 2.1. Network Overview Figure 2: Fort Air Partnership Map Page 8 of 39 Fort Air Partnership Network Monitoring Plan Continuous Monitoring Stations FAP currently operates eight continuous ambient air quality monitoring stations in an area northeast of Edmonton, Alberta, Canada. Four stations were established as fence line stations, with locations and parameters specified in regulatory industrial approvals, with a primary objective to monitor ambient air