Katestone Newsletter

Dear Valued Clients and Colleagues,

GFC is one acronym to describe the past six months at Katestone... but not the one you all expect! Growth, Festivities and Change.

GROWTH

We have been growing at a steady rate in the past few years not only in revenue but also in size as we have taken on more people to accommodate the increased workload. Ella Castillo has joined the team as a senior air quality consultant and brings with her over nine years of experience in the environmental field (read more about Ella’s experience here).

Katestone Environmental now has thirteen full time air quality professionals dedicated to delivering on all your air quality needs.

We have also grown in the services that we can now deliver to our clients with the development of our own weather and air quality forecasting service. The system is initialised from the same Global forecast models used to predict daily weather patterns and extreme events such as cyclones. Katestone Environmental has the unique capability of utilising these Global models to run high resolution nested weather and pollution forecasts for specific locations and deliver the analysis of key information for specific circumstances such as:

- Emission dispersion and prediction of ground level concentrations outside site boundaries or at key sensitive receptors

- Weather alerts for specific meteorological criteria (e.g. strong winds for dust management from stockpiles)

- Disaster planning

- Hazard management

- Heat stress forecasting

Please visit our web site or contact us if you would like to know more about our new forecasting service.

In the last financial year we have undertaken approximately 80 projects for a host of different clients and completed approximately 13,000 hours of billable work. This is not actually a significant increase in the number of jobs over previous years; however, the size of the jobs has increased substantially.

FESTIVITIES

Festivities and celebrations are always important at Katestone Environmental and this past six months has been no different. In June Katestone Environmental celebrated 10 years under my Direction and 21 years of the Katestone consulting group. We have come a long way since the days of operating out of a flat in Paddington with only two staff, and one is still with us today, Alma Wallace. Frank Quintarelli also celebrated a milestone with 10 years at Katestone.

There have been yet more babies born into the Katestone family with the arrival of Aidan Dean Cresta on 13th March (Lena and Damien’s second son) and Scarlett Ada Balch on 28 May (Andrew and Erin’s second daughter). It looks like the Katestone baby boom is over for now so it’s safe to drink the water again!

CHANGE

Change is always healthy and we have spent considerable time and resources in the past few months revamping our systems. With the increase in the number of team members and size of projects, we have been developing our own in house project management system. This system will be trialled over the next 12 months with the aim to have it totally operational and independent of our current system before the next financial year. We have also been working hard to improve our internal Quality Assurance system. As part of the QA system we have redefined project roles so that each project has a dedicated Project Director and Project Manager. Their role is to coordinate the Project Team and ensure the project is delivered in accordance with the QA system and the project scope of works.

Another area of change is the enhancement of our Geographical Information Systems (GIS) capability and the expansion of its use in our projects.

At Katestone Environmental, we utilise GIS in:

Spatial database management. We ensure that all spatial information on a project is stored in a methodical and systematic way.
Spatial Analysis. Aside from basic spatial analysis (terrain and land-use features), we also do analysis on advanced terrain features such as slope, aspect.
Statistical Analysis. A GIS-approach to conventional methods of analysis unlocks information on additional key features of the study that would not have been apparent using independent cartographic and database analysis.
Advanced Geographical Databases. Particularly in modelling, we create custom geophysical databases, significantly increasing resolution and accuracy from the "default" model databases.
Innovative data linkages. We research the best available data, and have developed methodologies and tools in converting to/from a wide variety of software formats to a consistent GIS format, increasing access to a wider-range of data sources.

There are lots of exciting things going on at Katestone Environmental and the air quality industry in general. If you are in the area please feel free to drop in for a chat and a coffee, we would love to see you. Looking forward to working with you all again soon.

Yours sincerely

Christine Killip - Managing Director

Ambient Air Quality NEPM Under Review

The National Environment Protection Council is currently reviewing the National Environment Protection (Ambient Air Quality) Measure. The review process commenced in 2005 and is expected to finish within the next 12 months. Two discussion papers have been released for consultation examining various aspects of the NEPM that are currently under review.

A brief review of the discussion paper on Air Quality Standards has highlighted the following:

New evidence on health effects of criteria air pollutants indicates that :

Health effects associated with exposure to air pollution at levels below the current AAQ NEPM standards.

CO, NO2, SO2, PM10 and PM2.5 are considered "non-threshold" pollutants which means that there will always be a certain level of risk associated with the standard whatever numerical value is set.

Health effects due to exposure to Ozone are observed for longer averaging periods (8 hour average) than current standards.

Health effects due to exposure to CO are observed for shorter averaging periods (1 hour average) than current standards.

There is increasing evidence that the coarse fraction, PM10-2.5 is associated with adverse health effects.
Lead in the general environment is well below current health standards. Concentrations around industrial sources may be better managed through adoption of Lead in the Air Toxics NEPM (designed to manage hot spots through monitoring investigation levels).
Benzene and Benzo(a)pyrene are currently contained in the Air Toxics NEPM as monitoring investigation levels, a trigger for further action around hot spots. Both pollutants are found more widely in the environment and may require a regional air quality standard.
The goals associated with the current standards are also under review. The current approach weakens the level of protection provided by the Standard by allowing a prescribed number of exceedances during a year. Possible alternatives include use of percentiles or the exclusion of data due to "exceptional" or "natural" events.

It should be noted that any changes to the standards would be undertaken through a separate process to vary the existing NEPM. If you are interested in a more in-depth discussion as to how this could potentially impact on your business please contact us.

Recent Katestone activity

Gladstone LNG industry

The development of the LNG industry in Gladstone and extraction of coal seam gas from the Bowen Basin has again kept us busy. Katestone Environmental prepared a detailed air quality impact assessment and plume rise assessment as part of the EIS for the Australia Pacific LNG Project. Australia Pacific LNG is a joint venture between Origin Energy (Origin) and ConocoPhillips Australia LNG Pty Limited. We have also completed an air quality assessment for the supplementary EIS for the Queensland Curtis LNG Project, which has now received approvals from the Queensland Government.

CASA Plume Rise Assessment

Katestone Environmental has been working with the Civil Aviation Safety Authority (CASA) to revise the current Advisory Circular (AC) for the Assessment of Plume Rise impact on aviation. All developments which have the potential to generate an exhaust plume with a vertical velocity above the threshold value of 4.3 m/s, should be assessed to determine the potential to impact on aircraft safety. Since the development of the AC in 2004 there has been considerable misinterpretation and misuse of the AC and the models available to undertake a plume rise assessment. The revision of the AC aims to make the process more transparent and easy for a proponent to determine what is required for their development.

Coal mines

Work with the coal mining industry and preparation of various air quality impact assessments is ongoing and has recently led to the award by the DECCW of a major project relating to particulate emissions from mining. Katestone Environmental are currently undertaking a project titled "International Best Practice Measures to Prevent and/or Minimise Particulate Emissions from Coal Mining". Read more about the project below.

Forecasting

Over the summer period Meat and Livestock Australia commissioned trial of a new high resolution numerical weather forecasting model to improve the forecasts of potential high heat load events at cattle feedlot stations. The current system which has been running for almost 10 years is based on forecasts provided by the Australian Bureau of Meteorology for existing Bureau automatic weather stations (AWS). This is limiting as the AWS are sometimes well removed (over 100 km in some cases) from the feedlot cattle stations, resulting in poor forecasts for a feedlot site.

The new system will provide a forecast that will be at most 9 km from the sites, and for the majority of the feedlots a maximum of only 4.5 km away. The service will be fully operation for the upcoming summer. It’s a free service and will be available on our web site by October.

International Best Practice Measures to Prevent and/or Minimise Particle Emissions from Coal Mining

The NSW Department of Environment, Climate Change and Water (DECCW) has commenced an environmental review of the NSW coal mining industry that aims to benchmark the performance of the coal mining industry against international best practice measures to prevent and/or minimise particle emissions. DECCW has contracted Katestone Environmental to complete the review with the following broad objectives:

Establish existing practices for minimising particle emissions from NSW coal mines and benchmark them against international best practice
Estimate the likely reduction in particle emissions and costs associated with adopting international best practice

Katestone Environmental has developed a scope of works for the study that includes:

Literature review of international practices
Documentation of NSW practice based on a survey, collection of relevant documents and Inspections of mines in NSW
Development of an emissions database to support cost benefit analysis
Cost benefit analysis

The study is currently in preparation.

Licencing

Katestone Environmental Director, Simon Welchman, was once on the other side of the approvals process. Simon spent five years with the Air Policy Section of the NSW Department of Environment (now DECCW). Simon’s knowledge of approvals and licencing processes for air quality as well as his sound understanding of what is required for different levels of assessment gives Katestone Environmental and our clients a head start in a project.

We can also provide sound advice on appropriate licence conditions for new or existing developments. Well-drafted licence conditions are focused on the environmental outcome that needs to be achieved, are measurable and enforceable, avoid unnecessary prescription, are achievable and consistent with the documents submitted within the approvals process. Poorly drafted licence and approval conditions can lead to regulatory uncertainty for the licensee and the regulator and potentially costly studies and negotiations down-the-track.

New Air Quality Standard for Sulfur Dioxide in the USA

The United States Environmental Protection Agency (US EPA) recently revised the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) on 2 June 2010 to include a new air quality standard for the 1-hour average concentration of SO2. The new standard is 75 parts per billion by volume (ppbv).

To attain this standard, the 3-year average of the 99th percentile of the daily maximum 1-hour average at each monitor within an area must not exceed 75 ppb.

The numerical value of the standard is considerably lower than the current NEPM value of 200 ppb, however, due to the method of applying the value to a 3-year average of the 99th percentile of the daily maximum, it is not easy to compare the two standards directly.

Katestone Environmental has reviewed the past 10 years of SO2 monitoring data in Gladstone to the new US EPA criterion. The review indicates that the new criterion is achieved with the maximum ranging from 55 ppb at Targinie to 68 ppb at South Gladstone.

If you have a monitoring data set you would like reviewed please contact us and we can analyse your data to compare it to the US EPA NAAQS for SO2.