{"id":936,"date":"2015-07-08T14:12:32","date_gmt":"2015-07-08T21:12:32","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blogs.oregonstate.edu\/superfund\/?p=936"},"modified":"2015-08-17T13:39:38","modified_gmt":"2015-08-17T20:39:38","slug":"mercury-scrubbers-at-oregon-power-plant-lower-other-pollution-too","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/superfund\/2015\/07\/08\/mercury-scrubbers-at-oregon-power-plant-lower-other-pollution-too\/","title":{"rendered":"Mercury scrubbers at Oregon power plant lower other pollution too"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Author:\u00a0 Gail Wells
\nOriginal Story at http:\/\/bit.ly\/OSU_AgNews1556<\/a><\/span>
\nPublished on July 7, 2015<\/div>\n
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\n \"Staci<\/a>\n
Dr. Staci Simonich led the study team. Photo by Lynn Ketchum, OSU<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>CORVALLIS, Ore. \u2013 Air pollution controls installed at an Oregon coal-fired power plant to curb mercury emissions are unexpectedly reducing another class of harmful emissions as well, an Oregon State University study has found.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Portland General Electric added emission control systems at its generating plant in Boardman, Oregon, in 2011 to capture and remove mercury from the exhaust.<\/p>\n

Before-and-after measurements by a team of OSU scientists found that concentrations of two major groups of air pollutants went down by 40 and 72 percent, respectively, after the plant was upgraded. The study was published in the journal Environmental Science & Technology this month.<\/p>\n

The Boardman plant, on the Oregon side of the Columbia River about 165 miles east of Portland, has historically been a major regional source of air pollution, said Staci Simonich, environmental chemist in OSU\u2019s College of Agricultural Sciences and leader of the study team (OSU SRP Project 5<\/a>).<\/p>\n

\u201cPGE put control measures in to reduce mercury emissions, and as a side benefit, these other pollutants were also reduced,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

The pollutants in question are from a family of chemicals called polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs), which are formed from incomplete combustion of fossil fuels and organic matter. PAHs are a health concern because some are toxic, and some\u00a0 trigger cell mutations that lead to cancer and other ailments.<\/p>\n

Simonich and her team tracked concentrations of airborne PAHs during 2010 and 2011 at Cabbage Hill, Oregon (elevation 3,130 feet), about 60 miles east of the Boardman plant, and also at the 9,065-foot summit of Mount Bachelor 200 miles to the southwest.<\/p>\n

They sampled approximately weekly from March through October of 2010, and again from March through September of 2011. They analyzed the samples for three major groups of PAHs: the parent chemicals and two \u201cderivatives\u201d\u2014 groups of PAH chemicals resulting from the decomposition of the parent PAHs.<\/p>\n

The 2011 measurements at Cabbage Hill showed significantly reduced concentrations of the parent PAHs and also of one of the derivative groups, called oxy-PAHs (OPAHs). The other derivative group, called nitro-PAHs (NPAHs), did not show significant reduction. The NPAHs were more likely to have come from diesel exhaust associated with Interstate Highway 84, Simonich said.<\/p>\n

Some of the individual PAH chemicals were reduced so much after the upgrade that the researchers couldn\u2019t tell from the data whether the plant was running or not, she added.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe upgrades reduced the PAH emissions to the point where we could hardly distinguish between air we sampled along the Gorge and at the top of Mount Bachelor.\u201d While Oregon\u2019s mountaintops typically have less air pollution than lower-lying areas, Simonich\u2019s previous work has shown that they are not pristine.<\/p>\n

\n \"Scott<\/a>\n
Scott Lafontaine<\/figcaption>\n <\/figure>\n

She and her student Scott Lafontaine stumbled upon the Boardman findings while studying PAHs that originate in Asia and ride high-level air currents across the Pacific Ocean. They were measuring how much of each PAH type was coming from Asia, and how much from within the Northwest or elsewhere.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe wanted to see if there was the same level of trans-Pacific transport at lower elevations\u2014where people actually live\u2014as we\u2019ve previously found at Mount Bachelor,\u201d Simonich said.<\/p>\n

When the researchers analyzed the Cabbage Hill data for 2010, they found high levels of the chemicals they were studying, but the pollutants did not have an Asian signature.<\/p>\n

Then in 2011, they found that the Cabbage Hill concentrations of the parent PAHs and OPAHs were much lower than they\u2019d been in 2010.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe looked at the data and said, \u2018Wow! 2010 is different from 2011, and why should that be?\u2019\u201d Simonich said. \u201cWe had trouble understanding it from a trans-Pacific standpoint. So we started thinking about regional sources, and that\u2019s what led us to look at emissions from Boardman.\u201d<\/p>\n

They got in touch with officials at PGE and learned about the April 2011 upgrade. Their review of PGE\u2019s emission records revealed correlations with their own measurements. They concluded that the reductions in PAH concentrations at the Cabbage Hill site were caused by the 2011 upgrade.<\/p>\n

The upgrade may also aid her research, Simonich said. \u201cWhen you have a major point source of pollution nearby, it\u2019s hard to pick out the signal of the Asian source coming from farther away. Now that these emissions are reduced, we may be able to pick up that signal much better.\u201d<\/p>\n

More important, she said, the air is cleaner.<\/p>\n

\u201cBoardman used to be a major source of PAH pollution in the Columbia River Gorge, and now it\u2019s not,\u201d she said. \u201cThat\u2019s a good thing for PGE and a good thing for the people living in the Gorge.\u201d<\/p>\n

The study was funded by the OSU Superfund Research Program, a multidisciplinary center administered by the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences. Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Confederated Tribes of the Umatilla Indian Reservation collaborated on the research.<\/p>\n

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Scott Lafontaine received his MS in Chemistry at OSU and is now pursing a Ph.D. in Food Science with Dr. Thomas Shellhammer in the Food Science Department.<\/p>\n

I am focusing on brewing science and specifically on advancing the understanding of the chemical behavior of hop flavor and aroma in beer. I am very excited to have the opportunity to continue my graduate studies at OSU, within a program that has been analyzing hops since 1932.\u00a0 I look forward to using my unique background and education to bridge some of the concepts I learned while working on my master’s thesis. I want to be able to bring a new perspective to some of the key questions in this field.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Author:\u00a0 Gail Wells Original Story at http:\/\/bit.ly\/OSU_AgNews1556 Published on July 7, 2015 CORVALLIS, Ore. \u2013 Air pollution controls installed at an Oregon coal-fired power plant to curb mercury emissions are unexpectedly reducing another class of harmful emissions as well, an Oregon State University study has found. Portland General Electric added emission control systems at its… Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":106,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[69991,169,523,217],"tags":[165,182676,70005,182653,101481],"class_list":["post-936","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-in-the-news","category-publications","category-research","category-training","tag-news","tag-opahs","tag-pahs-2","tag-project-5","tag-research-2"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/superfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/superfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/superfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/superfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/106"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/superfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=936"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/superfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":949,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/superfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/936\/revisions\/949"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/superfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=936"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/superfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=936"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dev.blogs.oregonstate.edu\/superfund\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=936"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}