North Shore AIR

Area Sources

AREA SOURCES

Area Sources are responsible for as much as 80 tons per year of HAP emissions (19%) in our three target communities, while accounting for 14% of the total air emissions and the largest contributor to VOC emissions on the county level.

Per the most recent EPA data available (1999 NATA Data), the top 10 Area Sources that contribute most to Air Emissions in Essex County, in order of largest to smallest contribution, are (Note:  EPA has not made this data available at the Town level to date)

1. Architectural Surface Coating (paints, stains, sealers, wood preservatives, roof coatings, varnish )
2. FIFRA Consumer Products – FIFRA is the Federal Insecticide, Fungicide, and Rodenticide Act, which requires the registration of any substance intended to prevent, destroy, repel, or mitigate pests.
3. Automotive Consumer Products
4. Commercial Printing
5. Consumer Coatings – (used for furniture refinishing, etc.)
6. Consumer Adhesives & Sealants
7. Paint Stripping
8. Body Repair & Paint Shops
9. Municipal Landfills
10. Dry Cleaning
    Gasoline Service Stations were listed by EPA as #16, but are listed below since this was one of the Area Sources that was identified during this project’s community mapping effort.
11. Gasoline Service Stations

Since we know that area sources make a significant contribution to the air pollution in the three target communities, an important component of the North Shore AIR project was to collect data on the area sources.  It is not possible to quantify the locations of many of the sources on the top ten list above because they are operations that move from site to site, such as painting or pesticide application, or they are the use of consumer products.  As a result, volunteers were sent out into each of the targeted communities to do “community mapping” where they identified the following stationary sources of air pollution (bolded in the list above): printers , automotive- including auto body, repair and gasoline sales, and drycleaners. In addition nail salons (or beauty salons that include nail services) and any manufacturing was identified.

Community Mapping Findings:

In order to better determine the effects that Area Sources may have on air pollution, we not only looked at the EPA NATA data (with 1999 as the most recent available data), but received a specially requested download from MA DEP's 2005 Environmental Results Program (ERP) submittals to determine the average emissions reported through the State program for those sources required to report.

This also allowed us to compare the self-reporters in MA DEP's system (printers and drycleaners) to the facilities that were found during our community mapping effort, as well as review and estimate emissions from these activities. In addition, MADEP provided a list of gasoline distributors that report to them under a separate program, allowing us to compare the number of facilities with the ones the community mappers identified. This report, however, did not include emission estimates for gasoline distributors.

AREA SOURCES SUMMARY

After reviewing the available information about specific area sources, we found that there are very limited requirements for these sources to report through any government agency.  Thus, the air pollution figures available for these types of sources are primarily determined through agency modeling.   We also found that among the EPA’s estimated top 10 contributing individual source contributors to Area Source air pollution in Essex County, five were related directly to consumer products:

• FIFRA Consumer Products –substance intended to prevent, destroy, repel, or mitigate pests;
• Automotive Consumer Products;
• Consumer Coatings;
• Consumer Adhesives & Sealants; and
• Paint Strippers. 

These could not be determined under the scope of this report due to the diverse way in which they are purchased and used.  However, it is worth noting that consumer products clearly make up a large percentage of the Area Source pollution and may be an appropriate category to consider for reduction opportunities. 

Of the remaining five top Area sources, three were identified by community mappers (Printing, Body Repair & Painting, and Drycleaning).  However, only Printing and Drycleaning could be compared to actual air emission reporting currently required at the state level.  In comparing the number of sources in the state system to the number of facilities found by community mappers, and applying state average emissions to each of the additional identified sources, there is possibly 22,615 additional pounds (11.3 tons) of air emissions from these sources that is not currently being reported (in other words, more than 2.5 times more air pollution than is reported). In addition, some of the sources that do report to the state have reports that provide negative emission numbers, and thus there may be an additional 3029 pounds (1.5 tons) of air emissions not reported due to reporting methodology inaccuracies.  Finally, after also comparing the state average emissions per type of source with the emissions reported by local sources three facilities (one printer and two drycleaners) were found to be above average, suggesting a potential reduction opportunity.