POWER April 2016 - 67

ENVIRONMENTAL REGULATION
1. New monitor location. The red arrow shows the new location
of the SO2 monitor in Cedar Rapids' Tait Cummins Park. Prairie
Creek Generating Station can be seen in the foreground. Courtesy:
Map data © 2016 Google
2. Level indicator. Local agencies and Alliant Energy worked together
to develop an informational flier about the new SO2 monitor and
what SO2 air quality levels mean. It included this graphic. Courtesy:
Linn County Public Health Department
near. It was anticipated that the presence of the trailer would generate
questions, not only from users of the park, but also from those who
work at PCGS, regarding its purpose, as well as what the information
it was collecting might be telling.
LCPHD and Alliant Energy worked with officials of the Linn
County Parks Department to develop a flier (Figure 2) that would
communicate the purpose of the monitor, how the SO2
standard was
provide a better representation of SO2
concentrations in the area. The
Iowa Department of Natural Resources (IDNR) directed the LCPHD
to relocate an existing SO2
monitor that had been stationed near an
industrial park containing a coal-fired power plant that had been shuttered
by the floods of 2008 to another location with potential SO2
emitting sources. LCPHD examined its air emissions inventory and
decided to locate the monitor near the facility that had reported the
highest annual SO2
Energy's Prairie Creek Generating Station.
LCPHD contacted Alliant Energy officials and discussed the possibility
of locating the monitor near PCGS, noting that although the
plant had the highest reported annual SO2
county, the area was also impacted by other SO2
emission levels in the
-emitting sources.
The precise location had yet to be decided. Although both Alliant
Energy and LCPHD had conducted ambient air quality modeling to
assess potential impact areas, both sets of analyses indicated that the
areas predicted to observe the highest concentrations of SO2
were in a
wooded area away from public congregation.
LCPHD, as a public health protection agency, assessed its options
and looked for an area to locate the monitor that might be more representative
of where the public may be. That line of thought raised the
possibility of locating the monitor in Tait Cummins Park, adjacent to
PCGS (Figure 1).
SO2
changed, how to obtain information on the monitor's readings, and
that there hadn't been any significant increases in SO2
emission sources
in the area. (See the online version of this article at powermag.com
for a link to a pdf of the flier.) In addition, data that the monitor was
collecting was added to LCPHD's Air Quality Division's webpage
(https://monitoring.linncleanair.org).
emissions levels in recent years. That was Alliant
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is a fairly localized air pollutant not typically subject to longrange
transport like ozone or fine particulates. According to Shane
Dodge, supervisor of the Air and Water Quality Branch for the
LCPHD, by locating the monitor in the park, LCPHD would be able
to assess local SO2
emission sources' impact on an area where the
public congregates.
The recommendation to locate the monitor in Tait Cummins Park
was put before the IDNR and ultimately accepted. That location, because
it wasn't the area with the highest predicted concentrations of
SO2
, would not ultimately serve as an acceptable location to demonstrate
attainment with the SO2
standard, but it would be responsive to
LCPHD's mission.
Locating a monitoring trailer in Tait Cummins Park presented
some interesting questions for the LCPHD and Alliant Energy to work
through. The park contains several baseball diamonds and a concession
stand, which the monitoring trailer was intended to be located
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POWER April 2016

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