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Nonroad Mobile Workgroup

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Collaborative Wiki Main Page

Inventory Collaborative Google Drive Link

Members

Co-leads: Sarah Roberts (EPA OTAQ), Joseph Jakuta (Ozone Transport Commission),

Alexandra Catena (District of Columbia), Alison Eyth (EPA OAQPS), Andy Bollman (North Carolina), Brian Sullins (Alabama), Brian Timin (EPA OAQPS), Brian Trowbridge (Pennsylvania), Chris Bovee (Wisconsin), Chris Kite (Texas), Chris Rochester (New York), Collin Smythe (Vermont), Dale Wells (Colorado), Gil Grodzinsky (Georgia), James Smith (Tennessee), Jim Koronaides (New Jersey), Ken Santlal (Massachusetts), Marc Bennett (Massachusetts), Mark Janssen (LADCO), Mike Maleski (Ohio), Peter Verschoor (Utah), Rebecca Simpson (Colorado), Sonya Lewis-Cheatham (Virginia), Susanne Cotty (Pima County, AZ), Sylvia Vanderspek (California), Tim Wallace (Maryland), Tom Moore (WESTAR), Vanessa Crandell-Beck (Alaska)

Work Group Meetings

April 26, 2018

Attendees

Co-leads: Sarah Roberts (EPA OTAQ), Joseph Jakuta (Ozone Transport Commission),

Alexandra Catena (District of Columbia), Alison Eyth (EPA OAQPS), Andy Bollman (North Carolina), Brian Sullins (Alabama), Brian Timin (EPA OAQPS), Brian Trowbridge (Pennsylvania), Chris Bovee (Wisconsin), Chris Kite (Texas), Chris Rochester (New York), Collin Smythe (Vermont), Dale Wells (Colorado), Gil Grodzinsky (Georgia), James Smith (Tennessee), Jim Koronaides (New Jersey), Ken Santlal (Massachusetts), Marc Bennett (Massachusetts), Mark Janssen (LADCO), Mike Maleski (Ohio), Peter Verschoor (Utah), Rebecca Simpson (Colorado), Sonya Lewis-Cheatham (Virginia), Susanne Cotty (Pima County, AZ), Sylvia Vanderspek (California), Tim Wallace (Maryland), Tom Moore (WESTAR), Vanessa Crandell-Beck (Alaska)(Maryland)

Agenda

Minutes/Notes

Action Items

Next call: Thursday, May 24 3:30pm EDT

March 22, 2018

Attendees

Co-leads: Sarah Roberts (EPA OTAQ), Joseph Jakuta (Ozone Transport Commission)

Alison Eyth (EPA OAQPS), Andy Bollman (North Carolina), Brian Sullins (Alabama), Chris Bovee (Wisconsin), Chris Kite (Texas), Chris Rochester (New York), Dale Wells (Colorado), Gil Grodzinsky (Georgia), James Smith (Tennessee), Ken Santlal (Massachusetts), Mark Janssen (LADCO), Mike Maleski (Ohio), Peter Verschoor (Utah), Rebecca Simpson (Colorado), Sonya Lewis-Cheatham (Virginia), Susanne Cotty (Pima County, AZ), Tim Wallace (Maryland)

Agenda

Minutes/Notes

EPA is targeting a summer release of MOVES2016b for use in 2016v1 (and perhaps the beta version), with a primary focus on improving nonroad inventories. The improvements involve recalculations of engine populations from refining the engine population growth rates, a bug fix in the nonroad fuel supply, and improvements in Tier 4 and after-treatment data. These are primarily database updates, but some minor code changes were necessary. MOVES2016b will not be considered a new model for SIP and conformity purposes. The release will also resolve an issue involving scratch files that creates problems when running virus scan. The new growth rates are comparable to what was submitted by a handful of states as part of the recent NODA process. EPA will share results of MOVES2014b testing with the workgroup as they become available.

2016 alpha release is now available for download from EPA’s FTP site. Joseph reviewed a summary of NOx, PM2.5 and SO2. Agriculture is the largest category and has the most regional variation. Construction equipment is the next more important category. Pleasure craft, commercial, industrial and lawn and garden are around the same magnitude as the third most important.

Mark Janssen reviewed slides on some of LADCO’s efforts to rethink NONROAD. Focused on “following the money” to determine the best source for population and activity data. Agricultural equipment was a prime category, and Department of Agriculture data estimating the amount of fuel required for agricultural operations was used as a starting point. LADOC generated a new monthly activity profile with spring and fall peaks (corresponding to planting and harvesting activities), in contrast to EPA’s default monthly activity levels that show a peak during the summer ozone season. Another area of concern is the spatial allocation problem shown by fitting data into counties and the distribution of pleasure craft in the Great Lakes.

Andy Bollman (North Carolina) reviewed slides on efforts to improve growth of agriculture and construction equipment. Began by looking at 2011 nonroad NOx emissions and finding the levels high. Developed surrogate data using sales data from EIA. Construction equipment sales decreased and agriculture equipment decreased then increased. Used new values for years up to 2015 and let NONROAD calculate growth thereafter. Construction equipment in particular varied considerably from NONROAD. Did only look at the years in the model rather than every year which may have resulted in spikes or extreme dips being glossed over.

Dale Wells (Colorado) asked if for the NEI, there were any efforts to harmonize fugitive dust emissions with nonroad activity. Alison Eyth indicated that she was not aware of such efforts, but that that might be worth digging into. Gil Grodzinsky (Georgia) reviewed his work in which he ran 15 counties in GA looking at the impact of updating growth indices on emissions, compared to EPA defaults and a no-growth scenario. Overall NOx reductions occur with no-growth and the updated surrogate, but VOCs only changed for the no growth scenario. A review was conducted of various sectors.

Mark also showed LADCO data illustrating the growth of snowmobiles may be overestimated as well. Peter Verschoor (Utah) also commented that snowmobile populations are declining in Utah. Sarah concurred that NONROAD’s current growth rates for the recreational equipment sector appear to overestimate populations, and that the updated growth rates in MOVES2014b will bring that curve down substantially.

Action Items

  • All: review draft workgroup charge; provide comments to Sarah and Joseph by April 1st, 2018
  • All: if you're planning to submit data for inclusion in the beta inventory run, please contact Sarah, Joseph, and Alison Eyth to indicate what inputs you intend to provide
  • All: if you would like to present on efforts to improve emissions estimates from the Lawn & Garden and Recreational Marine sectors at the April 26th workgroup meeting, please send a note to Sarah and Joseph by COB Monday, April 23rd

Next call: Thursday, April 26 3:30pm EDT

February 8, 2018

Attendees

Co-leads: Sarah Roberts (EPA OTAQ), Joseph Jakuta (Ozone Transport Commission)

Alexandra Catena (District of Columbia), Alison Eyth (EPA OAQPS), Brian Sullins (Alabama), Brian Timin (EPA OAQPS), Brian Trowbridge (Pennsylvania), Chris Bovee (Wisconsin), Chris Kite (Texas), Chris Rochester (New York), Dale Wells (Colorado), Gil Grodzinsky (Georgia), James Smith (Tennessee), Ken Santlal (Massachusetts), Kusandra King (North Carolina), Marc Bennett (Massachusetts), Mark Janssen (LADCO), Mike Maleski (Ohio), Rebecca Simpson (Colorado), Sonya Lewis-Cheatham (Virginia), Stephanie Huber (California), Susanne Cotty (Pima County, AZ), Vanessa Crandell-Beck (Alaska)

Agenda

  • Welcome and Introductions
  • Overview of Inventory Collaborative
    • Organizational Structure
    • Platform Schedule
    • Resources
  • Nonroad Work Group Tasks
  • Planned Updates to NONROAD Model
  • Next Steps

Minutes/Notes

EPA heard from states that they wanted to be more involved in providing inputs in development of inventories, as well as the methods used, in particular when projecting growth. Inventory will be in 3 phases. Alpha will be based on 2014 NEI v2, which has been posted on the ftp site. The nonroad files are rather large and might need to be resized. Beta will include projections to 2023 and 2028 and improvements to 2014. 2016v1 will be completed by winter 2019.

NONROAD standalone model was release about 20 years ago and besides folding it into the MOVES GUI and updating a few emissions rates there have been no improvements. EPA is planning on updating the growth rates that are growing populations or activity from 1996, 1998, or 2000 depending on class in the next update to MOVES. It currently uses a national growth rate, which is based on a linear extrapolation. Planning on using a variety of mostly public data sets including projection surrogates such as US Census population as well as historic data such as fuel and kerosene sales and boat registrations. This new data saw an overall decrease in engine populations in most sectors and reductions in emissions as well. For this effort EPA is considering whether they will provide an updated NONROAD input database or develop adjustment factors to apply after MOVES2014a NONROAD runs are complete.

Gil Grodzinsky conducted a similar test of improving growth rates for some sectors and found similar results for the sectors they analyzed.

It should be noted that aircraft ground support equipment and oil and gas equipment from NONROAD is not used and will not fall under the purview of this group.

Mark Janssen brought up the issue of whether some of this work could be taken outside of the NONROAD model and would like to block off time to hear from others on what they have done in individual states.

In subsequent calls we would like to plan on having members of the workgroup present some of their findings and methodology. Sarah Roberts proposed looking at sectors in order of emissions importance. We will start with agriculture and construction next month.

Datasets should be sent to Sarah Roberts (Roberts.Sarah at epa.gov) and Alison Eyth (Eyth.Alison at epa.gov) at EPA as well as Joseph Jakuta at OTC (jjakuta at otcair.org)

Action Items

  • If you would like to receive information and you are not on the distribution list please contact Sarah Roberts.
  • Everyone should look at the 2016 nonroad inventory and the NEI documentation to understand how base year data is developed.
  • We need to identify areas where data can be improved, populations or activity, including state data, and whether we should target particular sectors.
  • Everyone should become familiar with the updates EPA plans on making to NONROAD in MOVES.
  • Joseph Jakuta and Sarah Roberts will work on a workgroup charge prior to the next call; will circulate to the group
  • Sarah Roberts will send out an email to inform everyone of the next meeting and the sectors to focus on (agriculture and construction).
  • If you would like to share work that’s been done at the local, state, and regional level to improve emissions estimates from the Construction and Agriculture nonroad equipment sectors, please send a note to Sarah and Joseph by COB Monday, March 19th.
  • If anyone has any preferences for dividing the nonroad inventory into smaller sizes for review send them to Sarah and Joseph.

Next Call: Thursday, March 22 3:30 pm EDT