Draft Summary of the Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA)

Science and Technical Support Work Group Meeting

Mutual Building, Tom Helms' Office

July 22, 1997

Durham, North Carolina

The Science and Technical Support Work Group (STSWG) of the FACA Subcommittee met on Tuesday, July 22, 1997 in Durham, North Carolina. A list of participants and a summary of the meeting follows.

Work Group Participants

Name	Affiliation

Diana Andrews	Kentucky DEP

Glenn Cass	Cal Tech

Kirit Chaudhari	Virginia DEQ

David Chock	Ford Motor Company

Jeff MacGillivray	New Hampshire State Representative

Jay Hudson/Leon Outlaw	Santee-Cooper

Dave McNeill	Utah DEQ

Tom Moore	Arizona

Jay Turner	DOT

Jeffrey West	GPU Services Corporation

Steve Ziman	Chevron

Work Group Members Not Present

Harvey Jeffries, Co-Chair	University of North Carolina - Chapel Hill

Tom Helms, Co-Chair	U.S. EPA

John Cabaniss	AIAM

John Core	WESTAR

Ellis Cowling	SOS

Cyril Durrenberger	TNRCC

Bruce Hill	Appalachian Mountain Club

David Kelly	Navajo EPA

George Lauer	ARCO

Rich Poirot	Vermont

S.T. Rao	N.Y. Department of Environmental Conservation

Jay Rosenthal	U.S. Navy

Mark Scruggs	DOI

Manop Vanichchagorn	Louisiana DEQ

Dan Weiss	Cinergy Corporation

Non-Work Group Participants

Bob Wayland, SAIC; Bob Judge, U.S. EPA/Region 1; Ned Meyer, U.S. EPA/AQMG; Bill Kuykendal, U.S. EPA/EFIG; Charlene Spells, U.S. EPA/IPSG; David Sanders and Bob Stallings, U.S. EPA/OPSG.

Summary of the Meeting

RFP Metrics Paper - David Sanders

David Sanders explained that Cyril Durrenberger was adding some additional figures and text to the paper to make the examples more self-explanatory. Thus, the paper would not be ready for discussion today; however, the paper would be completed in time to discuss it at either the August 5, 1997 conference call or at the Face-to-Face meeting in Portland, Oregon on August 12, 1997. Mr. Sanders stated that Mr. Durrenberger also wanted to incorporate some material and some examples on David Chock's t-test methodology, such that it could be included in the RFP paper.

David Chock replied that he had provided this information earlier to John Silvasi. Mr. Chock suggested that David Sanders review this material, and if appropriate use this in the RFP paper. However, if new material would be necessary, Mr. Chock would gladly pull something together.

David Sanders replied that he would talk with Mr. Silvasi, and get something together to send to Mr. Durrenberger. He said that most likely, the text of Mr. Chock's material would need to be reworked to make it understandable for the target audience of the RFP paper. Mr. Sanders reminded the group that the t-test materials previously discussed were very technical in nature.

Jeff MacGillivray asked if everyone had received Mr. Chock's comments?

David Sanders replied that he was not sure; however, he would research this and make sure that everyone had the information.

Tom Moore questioned with Mr. Silvasi would be back in the office?

Bob Stallings indicated that Mr. Silvasi was scheduled for two weeks of leave; however, it was possible that he would return to the office next week for part of the week.

David Sanders suggested that it was quite likely that John Silvasi would be arranging calls next week for the RFP paper. Mr. Sanders stated that next week would be a critical week in finalizing this document. He suggested that anyone who would be "out of pocket" next week should submit written comments directly to Cyril Durrenberger or John Silvasi.

David Chock said to avoid confusion he would send another version of his t-test materials directly to both John Silvasi and Cyril Durrenberger. Mr. Chock asked if anyone could give him Mr. Durrenberger's e-mail?

David Sanders responded that he did not have it with him, but would forward the information to Mr. Chock. He suggested at this time that the group move on to Ted Russell's Modeling and Emissions Inventory paper. As a summary, Mr. Sanders recapped the discussions held this past Friday, following the Source Attribution Workshop. He indicated that the had received comments from Steve Ziman, Tom Moore and Ned Meyer.

David Chock advised the group that he intended to comment on the paper as well. He asked if we still had a two-week comment period?

Diana Andrews questioned if there was a later version than the July 14, 1997 version?

David Sanders replied that the July 14, 1997 version was the most recent. He continued saying that Tom Moore's comments, which we received on the July 21, 1997, were based on Mr. Russell's 7/14/97 version. Mr. Sanders stated that he had incorporated Steve Ziman's comments, Ned Meyer's response, and Tom Moore's latest write-up in his latest effort. He questioned if Mr. Moore had distributed his comments to all Work Group members?

Tom Moore said that he had sent the comments to Mr. Sanders, such that he could distribute them to the entire Work Group.

David Sanders responded that he would take care of completing this distribution. Mr. Sanders reminded the Work Group that he had not made any changes to Version 3.3 of the paper, which was what Ted Russell distributed at the meeting on Friday, July 18, 1997. He stated that he had written these changes in the margins of version 3.3, but had not had the opportunity to enter them electronically.

Diana Andrews asked when Becky Battye (NRSWG Contractor) was supposed to take the final version and make it final?

David Sanders replied that this would happen next week after Ted Russell had the opportunity to review everyone's comments and incorporate them into the paper. Mr. Sanders also indicated that Robin Dunkins was away this week on vacation, and would not be available to provide direction to the Contractor.

Charlene Spells stated that Ms. Battye was expecting to have this document out the door on July 23, 1997.

Tom Moore agreed with Ms. Spells.

David Sanders acknowledged that this was true; however, he reminded the STSWG members that were present for the meeting on July 18, 1997, that the schedule was adjusted somewhat at that time.

Diana Andrews said that it would be very useful for her to receive the latest version of the document as soon as possible.

David Sanders reiterated that there were substantial changes made during the Friday, July 18, 1997 meeting that Ms. Battye and Ms. Dunkins were not aware of. Thus, Mr. Sanders indicated that he was in a quandary over the direction to take at this point, because he had not had the opportunity to discuss the comments made at the Face-to-Face meeting with Ms. Dunkins.

Tom Moore suggested that we had discussed this subject enough, and that we needed to make some decision on a plan of attach. Mr. Moore indicated that it was his opinion that the document needed to go to Ms. Battye today, in order to allow her ample time to finalize the document and distribute the document prior to the July 24, 1997 scheduled call.

Charlene Spells acknowledged that NRSWG was scheduled to discuss this paper on their call on July 24, 1997.

Tom Moore stated that the Modeling and Emission Inventory subgroup call was scheduled for July 25, 1997 from 11:00 a.m. to 12:00 p.m. Mr. Moore suggested that everyone needed to get their comments to Ms. Battye as soon as possible, such that they could incorporated into the document prior to this call.

Charlene Spells reminded the group that Ms. Dunkins was in Washington, DC for the hearings. Ms. Spells stated that she was unsure whether she would participate in the July 25, 1997 call.

David Sanders interjected that Mr. Russell was slated to present this paper to the Subcommittee at the Portland, Oregon FACA Meeting in August.

Tom Moore asked if anyone knew the specifics of the Modeling and Inventory Group call for Friday?

David Sanders replied that it would be between 11:00 a.m. and 12:30 p.m., and the call-in number was 202-260-7280, Code, 3040#.

Jeff West reminded that group that there were two additional areas that Mr. Russell wanted to address in the revised version of the paper: modeling uncertainty; and, defining uncertainty of impacts of determining AOIs. Mr. West asked if these had been properly addressed in any of the comments received to date?

David Sanders responded that he was not sure, because he had not reviewed all of the comments which had been submitted.

Steve Ziman indicated that Mr. Russell had discussed these issues in Version 3.3, which was distributed at the informal STSWG meeting on Friday, July 18, 1997. Mr. Ziman asked if Mr. West had reviewed this version of the paper?

Jeff West responded that he had not seen that version of the paper, because he did not stay over for the Friday morning meeting. Mr. West requested that Mr. Sanders send him a copy of that Version of the paper.

David Sanders replied that he thought everyone had copies of this version of the paper; however, he indicated that he would double-check, and if not, he would send the document again. Mr. Sanders reminded the membership that the group had a slight logistical problem here - the focus has changed considerably between the last call and what we discussed on Friday in our Face-to-Face meeting. He suggested that we could let Ms. Battye try and shape this up and distribute this version for discussion on July 25, 1997. However, he warned that this version could be substantially different than the draft that Mr. Russell would distribute later next week. He suggested that comments should be sent directly to Ms. Battye at rbattye@mindspring.com.

Jeff West voiced some concern that STSWG was rushing to provide comments to Ms. Battye, which would go out to other groups without STSWG having the opportunity to review them first. Mr. West admitted that he had a procedural problem with this approach.

David Sanders responded that he did not think that these problems were insurmountable. Mr. Sanders indicated that Ms. Battye would turn around a revised version for the call on July 25, 1997, and then Mr. Russell would have the weekend to provide his revisions. He continued saying, that STSWG would then have one week to comment on Mr. Russell's version. Thus, final comments would need to be to Ms. Battye no later than close of business on July 31, 1997. Mr. Sanders concluded that this would allow her the opportunity to get the changes made, and get the final version on the FACA web site prior to the August 5, 1997 Portland, Oregon FACA deadline.

David Chock asked which version would be used as the starting point?

David Sanders replied that the July 14, 1997 version, with the additions of Tom Moore, Steve Ziman, and Ned Meyer would serve as the foundation document.

David McNeill asked if Mr. Sanders would e-mail copies of the July 14, 1997 version and the associated comments to everyone?

David Sanders responded that he would do this.

David McNeill asked if anyone could give him Ted Russell's e-mail address?

David Sanders responded, trussell@pollution.ce.gatech.edu.

Source Attribution Workshop

David Sanders stated that he had hoped Harvey Jeffries would join the call to give a summary of the Source Attribution Workshop. However, in his absence, Mr. Sanders indicated that the would give this a shot, and asked that other members of the Work Group chime-in as necessary. Mr. Sanders said that some of the presenters missed the point that we were asking for details about source attribution/apportionment. He continued saying that a good deal of them did not really address source attribution in a clear, concise manner. A second point that was made was that even when we talked about particulate matter on the second day, it generally reverted back to an ozone discussion. He stated that this was not uncommon - it even happens in the FACA meetings. The decisions on the final day by Ken Demerjian appeared to be well-thought out, and concise.

Ned Meyer offered that he believed that the review panel did a pretty could job summarizing what was said. They tended to emphasize methods which were independent of the traditional modeling approaches - e.g., the receptor modeling approach.

David Sanders stated that Mr. Demerjian actually binned the methods into 4-5 categories, and thus provided the audience the best/worst of all worlds.

Ned Meyer indicated that the purpose of the binning was to identify the broad issues that the STSWG and AQMG had identified for the Peer Review Panel, and then he tried to address the approaches that were relevant to these issues.

David Sanders said that the Work Group would receive a written summary, and that we should be able to incorporate this into the Conceptual Model Document somewhere down the road..

Ned Meyer stated that once the summary is available, he would be interested in hearing the opinion of the Work Group members on what EPA might do to follow-up on these recommendations. He reminded the membership that EPA did have some resources set aside to attempt to complete some of these types of analyses.

David Chock asked if FACA was going to end prior to 12/31/97?

Ned Meyer responded that it was scheduled to end in December.

Jeff West asked what Mr. MacGillivray was presenting during the Portland, Oregon meeting?

Jeff MacGillivray responded that Harvey Jeffries had asked him to present some material on the results of his work from the State of New Hampshire.

Jeff West suggested that Mr. MacGillivray change the title of his talk, because it was easily confused with last week's workshop title.

David Sanders stated that he had e-mailed the agenda for the Face-to-Face meeting in Portland, Oregon on August 12, 1997 to everyone. He said that this very tentative agenda would contain the following presentations (among other discussions): Jeff MacGillivray's paper; and, Fine Particulate Transport from the Sahara, Tom Cahill, George Bluhm - University of California-Davis (This paper needs to be obtained from Robin Dunkins). Finally, Mr. Sanders said that three major topics would be as follows: RFP Metrics Paper; Ted Russell's Modeling and Emissions Inventory Paper; and, the LeFohn/Ziman paper on Attainment Feasibility (Steve Ziman will present this information). In conclusion, Mr. Sanders asked each member to review these papers, and come prepared to discuss them on August 12, 1997 in Portland, Oregon.

Steve Ziman interjected that he need to get everyone's comments on the LeFohn/Ziman paper prior to August 4, 1997 such that he would be prepared to discuss them at the meeting.

Jeff West asked if there would review material on these papers prior to the Portland, Oregon meeting?

David Sanders responded affirmatively, and asked Mr. MacGillivray to send him some information on his presentation.

David Chock questioned what Harvey Jeffries was going to discuss at the Subcommittee meeting?

David Sanders responded that he would be giving Ken Demerjian's findings from the Source Attribution Workshop, and then discuss where STSWG might go from here. Also, Mr. Sanders stated that Mr. Jeffries would summarize the two papers STSWG was currently working on: RFP Metrics; and, Modeling and Emission Inventories.

Jeff West suggested that Mr. Jeffries be provided time on the agenda on August 12, 1997 to discuss his presentation informally with the STSWG members, prior to actually making this to the Subcommittee on the August 13, 1997.

David Sanders responded that he was sure Mr. Jeffries intended to do this.

Jeff West reiterated that it was important to block out at least 1 hour for this discussion; otherwise it would never take place.

David Chock asked if there would be a discussion of the new NAAQS at the Subcommittee meeting?

David Sanders indicated that John Seitz would be discussing this in the Subcommittee; however, there would not be any discussion during the STSWG Face-to-Face meeting.

Diana Andrews stated that she heard that the AOI/AOV concept was loosing steam and was in danger of being replaced. She asked if Mr. Sanders would like to comment on this statement, or was it simply rumor?

David Sanders acknowledged that the idea was loosing momentum; however, he stated that the Agency was diligently trying to hold on to the concept. He suggested that it would be hard to determine the outcome until Chris Stoneman and John Silvasi can pull all of their stuff together. He said that he did not view it as a lost cause at this point; however, he reminded the group that it would not hurt to continue to promote the idea as best we could.

Diana Andrews admitted that this was disconcerting, given that this whole FACA process had been built upon the concept of AOIs and AOVs.

David Sanders asked that the group not give-up on AOI/AOV. He suggested that the STSWG membership should continue to support the concept, and see if we could keep it alive and going. Mr. Sanders thanked the participants for their time and said that we would reconvene again on August 5, 1997.