Small Business in Topsfield, Mass. Receives $300,000 Grant to Develop Air Quality Monitoring Equipment

Press release:

News Release
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
New England Regional Office
August 21, 2012

Contact: David Deegan, (617) 918-1017

Small Business in Topsfield, Mass. Receives $300,000 Grant to Develop Air Quality Monitoring Equipment

(Boston, Mass. – Aug. 21, 2012) – A business in Topsfield, Mass. was among seven businesses nationwide to win a grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to develop and commercialize technology that helps protect the environment.

OPTRA Inc. Topsfield, Mass, received $299,956 for its air quality monitoring equipment from EPA’s Small Business Innovation and Research program. The air quality monitoring system will allow for the detection of a broader range of compounds and at a much lower level than previously available.

"This novel approach to air quality monitoring increases the number of compounds we can simultaneously detect at trace levels," said Julia Rentz Dupuis, chief technology officer at OPTRA. "The overall approach represents a more versatile solution than conventional methods."
“Small businesses are key to a strong economy in our towns and cities,” said Curt Spalding, regional administrator of EPA’s New England office. “OPTRA is helping find new ways protect our environment, developing green jobs, and exploring innovation and technology solutions to environmental issues.”

The Small Business program awarded seven contracts to small businesses across the nation to develop new technologies to keep the environment clean and healthy. Companies won the contracts through the highly competitive annual Small Business Innovation Research program competition, which encourages small businesses to explore and develop environmental technologies from concept to commercialization.

The winning companies submitted their innovative ideas during the first phase of the SBIR competition in 2011, and received SBIR Phase I contracts of up to $80,000 to develop their concepts into technologies addressing key environmental areas. Winning the SBIR Phase I competition made these companies eligible to apply to the program’s Phase II competition this year. As Phase II recipients, these companies have received around $300,000 to further develop their technologies for the market place.

In the last 10 years this program has funded more than 200 small companies. One such company, Ecovative Design, leveraged its funding to get $6 million in capital investment funding.  Ecovative Design develops biologically-based substitutes for polystyrene packaging and sustainable insulation. For packaging, Ecovative uses locally available waste, such as rice and soybean hulls as filler inside custom grown mushroom roots that can be made into a customizable shape to fit each customer’s particular need.

The other six Phase II recipients announced recently include:

• FBS, Inc., Pennsylvania for technology addressing detection of defects in water pipelines using ultrasonic guided waves
• Lynntech, Inc., Texas, for developing automated, field deployable environmental monitors that promote clean up strategies for restoring contaminated sites to productive use
• TDA Research, Inc., Colorado, for technology using waste gas from anaerobic digesters on farms to generate energy while preventing groundwater contamination and decreasing greenhouse gas emissions
• Advanced Diamond Technologies, Inc., Illinois, for technology treating new types of contaminants in drinking water
• Adherent Technologies, Inc., New Mexico, for a pollution control technology reducing particulate pollution emitted by outdoor wood-fired boilers by more than 50 percent
• Faraday Technology, Inc., Ohio, for a drop-in green chrome plating process that replaces conventional carcinogenic plating technology

In addition to OPTRA, three small businesses from New England received smaller grants earlier this year to develop technologies that help the environment. These companies were GVD Corp. of Cambridge, Mass., Aerodyne Research, Inc. of Billerica, Mass. and Orono Spectral Solutions, Inc., of Bangor, Maine. They were among 25 companies awarded contracts in Phase I of the annual competition.
To participate in the program, a company must be an organized, for-profit U.S. business and have fewer than 500 employees. Phase I awards may be up to $80,000 and Phase II awards up to $300,000.

More information on program eligibility: http://www.epa.gov/ncer/sbir

More information on the 2012 Phase II SBIR recipients: http://www.epa.gov/ncer/sbir12ph2

More information on the SBIR Program: http://www.SBIR.gov

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National Cooperative Refinery Association to Pay $700,000 in Penalties for Violations at Kansas Refinery and Storage Facility

U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region 7

901 N. Fifth St., Kansas City, KS 66101

Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, and Nine Tribal Nations

National Cooperative Refinery Association to Pay $700,000 in Penalties for Violations at Kansas Refinery and Storage Facility

Contact Information: Chris Whitley, 913-551-7394, whitley.christopher@epa.gov

Environmental News

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

(Kansas City, Kan., March 27, 2012) - The National Cooperative Refinery Association (NCRA) has agreed to pay $700,000 in penalties to the United States and the State of Kansas, and perform a series of injunctive relief actions, to settle violations of federal environmental laws and the Kansas State Implementation Plan at its petroleum refinery and underground storage facility in McPherson County, Kan.

As part of a consent decree lodged yesterday in U.S. District Court in Kansas City, Kan., NCRA will pay $475,000 in penalties to the United States and $225,000 to the State of Kansas. As a part of the settlement, NCRA has agreed to spend approximately $745,000 on supplemental environmental projects involving the purchase of emergency response equipment and services for the benefit of citizens and emergency response agencies in McPherson County.

NCRA owns and operates an 85,000-barrel-per-day petroleum refinery on Iron Horse Road in the city of McPherson, Kan., and an associated underground product storage facility in the nearby unincorporated community of Conway, Kan.

According to a complaint by the U.S. Department of Justice, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, the Kansas Attorney General’s Office and the Kansas Department of Health and Environment, NCRA:

• Violated the federal Clean Air Act (CAA) by failing to maintain and operate the refinery’s Unicracker Unit and associated air pollution control equipment in a manner consistent with good air pollution control practices, resulting in a 20-day flaring event that caused significant emissions of hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide to the atmosphere.
• Violated the CAA and the Kansas State Implementation Plan by exceeding emission limits contained in a construction permit for the refinery’s Unicracker Unit heater and Hydrogen Unit heater.
• Violated the CAA by failing to fully implement a Risk Management Program at the refinery and the underground product storage facility.
• Violated the federal Emergency Planning and Community Right-to-Know Act (EPCRA) and the federal Comprehensive Environmental Response, Compensation and Liability Act (CERCLA) by failing to make timely reports of releases of hydrogen sulfide and sulfur dioxide during four separate flaring events at the refinery, including the previously mentioned 20-day flaring event.
• Violated the EPCRA by submitting incomplete Tier II reports, which are supposed to include the identity and inventory of on-site chemicals, to emergency responders.
• Violated the EPCRA by failing to submit an accurate and complete Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) form to EPA.

The consent decree requires NCRA to perform a series of injunctive relief actions to address its non-compliance issues and enhance future compliance through greater emphasis on the Risk Management Program. These include performing an applicability study at the refinery and underground storage facility, providing detailed tank inspection timelines and information, and documenting the resolution of process hazard analyses and compliance audit findings.

For the CAA violations, the relief involves training for start-up procedures and revision to applicable limits for the refinery’s Unicracker Unit Heater.

Relief associated with the EPCRA and CERCLA violations includes completion of a compliance review for Tier II, TRI and episodic release reports. It also includes the submission of an associated report to EPA, retroactive release reporting, and release report training.

NCRA’s supplemental environmental projects, totaling at least $745,000, are designed to further the goals of EPCRA and the Risk Management Program, which seek to prevent accidental chemical releases, minimize the consequences of accidents that do occur, and enable local emergency responders to plan and respond effectively to chemical accidents.

The consent decree is subject to a 30-day public comment period and final approval by the court.

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News Release from Progress Energy

03/08/2012

Progress Energy implementing post-Fukushima lessons learned

RALEIGH, N.C. (March 8, 2012) – In the year since the tsunamis that caused accidents at nuclear power plants in Fukushima, Japan, Progress Energy has worked with the U.S. nuclear industry, the Nuclear Energy Institute and global resources to understand the events and implement changes to make the company’s plants even safer and better protected.

The company’s response includes in-depth inspections and analyses, physical changes, additional equipment to monitor and respond to potential emergencies, and plans for additional safety and security initiatives.

Progress Energy Chief Nuclear Officer James Scarola has been named as a special liaison for the U.S. nuclear industry’s Fukushima response. In that role, Scarola is helping lead the continuing effort to analyze lessons learned from the Fukushima events and response, and work with regulatory agencies, the industry and other stakeholders to implement enhancement plans at each of the nation’s 104 commercial nuclear plants.

Immediately following the March 11, 2011, accident at Fukushima Daiichi, Progress Energy conducted thorough inspections at each of its four nuclear sites located in the Carolinas and Florida. Plant personnel reviewed each plant’s emergency-response capabilities, written procedures and engineering specifications to verify each site’s ability to respond in the unlikely event of station blackout or record flood.

In 2012, Progress Energy is working to establish industry best practices and improve the safety standards and margin. The U.S. approach to safety at nuclear power plants is based on three layers of safety: protection, mitigation and emergency response. A revised strategy represents a significant expansion of the second layer — the ability to protect the plant and public in extreme external events that may exceed those for which the plant was designed.

Meanwhile, the nuclear industry is in the process of reanalyzing natural disasters, including earthquakes and flooding, to assess the state of readiness in light of the Japan events. U.S. nuclear companies are also adding emergency equipment, such as portable pumps and generators, to perform key safety functions if off-site electrical supplies and several backup power sources are lost to permanently installed safety systems due to natural and/or man-made causes.

Among the additional pieces of equipment, Progress Energy is adding, at each station, a high-capacity pump to maintain the ability to cool the reactor core in an unlikely accident, additional diesel generators for power restoration to critical equipment, and other associated support components (i.e., lights, fans, small generators, direct-current power supplies, pre-staged tool kits, fuel transfer equipment, hoses, cords, fittings, etc.). These systems and pieces of equipment are in addition to the numerous layers of safety measures and systems previously in place.

“At Progress Energy, we are committed to the relentless pursuit of safety,” Scarola said. “We know we need to learn every possible lesson from Japan, and apply those lessons in our quest for continuous improvement. While our nuclear power plants are built to the highest standards, it’s our job to continue to raise those standards by learning from Fukushima — just as we have from best practices and past challenges alike. While there are numerous studies that have validated the safety of our U.S. nuclear plants, our commitment is to make the future operation even safer than it is today.”

Progress Energy (NYSE: PGN), headquartered in Raleigh, N.C., is a Fortune 500 energy company with 23,000 megawatts of generation capacity and approximately $9 billion in annual revenues. Progress Energy includes two major electric utilities that serve about 3.1 million customers in the Carolinas and Florida. The company has earned the Edison Electric Institute's Edison Award, the industry's highest honor, in recognition of its operational excellence, and was the first utility to receive the prestigious J.D. Power and Associates Founder's Award for customer service. The company is pursuing a balanced strategy for a secure energy future, which includes aggressive energy-efficiency programs, investments in renewable energy technologies and a state-of-the-art electricity system. Progress Energy celebrated a century of service in 2008. Visit the company’s website at www.progress-energy.com.

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EPA Environmental Justice Grant to Help Farm Workers

News Release from EPA Region 2:

EPA Environmental Justice Grant to Help Farm Workers Reduce Pesticide Risks

Contact: Elias Rodriguez, 212-637-3664, rodriguez.elias@epa.gov

(New York, N.Y. - Jan. 23, 2012) The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is providing a $25,000 grant to the Comite de Apoyo a los Trabajadores Agrícolas (CATA) to reduce exposure to pesticides for farm workers in southern New Jersey. CATA, a Latino-led nonprofit organization, will educate migrant farm workers throughout the counties of Atlantic, Burlington, Camden, Cumberland, Gloucester and Salem, New Jersey about the risks of pesticide exposure and how to protect their health during field work.

““EPA environmental justice grants provide much needed funds to tackle local pollution problems in low income communities," said Judith A. Enck, EPA Regional Administrator. "Exposure to pesticides can have serious effects on people’s health. The grant to Comite de Apoyo a los Trabajadores Agrícolas will train migrant farm workers in southern New Jersey about steps they can take to better protect their health on the job.”

Pesticides are intended to harm or kill pests and are toxic by design. They can be very harmful to people’s health depending on the toxicity of the pesticide and the level of exposure. According to the Centers for Disease Control, doctors diagnose between 10,000 and 20,000 farm workers with pesticide poisonings each year. Workers can become exposed to toxic levels of pesticides during spills, direct spraying or pesticide drift. In addition, migrant farm workers may not be supplied protective gear needed to protect their health or the equipment they do receive is defective.

Southern New Jersey has a large population of migrant farm workers. For the past twenty years, CATA has managed an environmental program that provides information on pesticide protection, the reduction of harmful chemicals in the workplace and general health and safety training. The EPA funding to CATA will help farm workers implement worker protection standards and identify training needs. Under the project funded by the grant, the group will survey workers and train them using the We Work with Pesticides curriculum developed by the Farm Worker Health and Safety Institute and approved by the EPA.

Environmental justice means the fair treatment and meaningful involvement of all people, regardless of race or income, in the environmental decision-making process. Since 1994, the environmental justice small grants program has provided more than $23 million in funding to community-based nonprofit organizations and local governments working to address environmental justice issues in more than 1,200 communities. The grants further EPA’s commitment to expand the conversation on environmentalism and advance environmental justice in communities across the nation.

More information on the Environmental Justice Small Grants program and a list of grantees: http://www.epa.gov/compliance/environmentaljustice/grants/ej-smgrants.html

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