Sow the Wind: Toxic Air Pollution from the Savannah River Site

In the early 1950’s, the United States constructed a vast new atomic weapons center in the rolling countryside between Aiken, South Carolina and Augusta, Georgia. Factories replaced farmland and whole towns were relocated to make way for a huge federal facility. Today, nuclear weapons production has taken a back seat to environmental clean up at the Savannah River Site, SRS. The 310 square mile SRS encompasses scores of underground tanks with millions of gallons of radioactive sludge, waste dumps with thousands of tons of contaminated soil and huge amounts of polluted groundwater. Radioactive gas is being dispersed into the air. Facilities for high-level and low-level waste continue to process and store radioactive substances. In 2001 the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense League launched an extensive investigation into the operations at the Savannah River Site. We gathered reports prepared by government contractors. We studied the surrounding communities. Using computer modeling, we calculated the impact of air pollution from SRS in nearby towns. In addition to air modeling, we collected air samples at various points around the perimeter of the site. We detected a variety of toxic air pollutants outside the boundaries. The atmospheric emissions from SRS include tritium, nitric acid, volatile organic compounds, mercury, hydrogen fluoride, styrene and many other pollutants. Our principal conclusion based on the findings of this report is that recent and ongoing operations at SRS are having and may continue to have negative impacts on the health of residents in the central Savannah River area unless sweeping changes are made. Our investigation centered on the atmospheric emissions from smokestacks at SRS and how they affect nearby towns and rural communities. We know that the consequences of contamination have had an impact on people in all directions for hundreds of square miles around SRS. Additional exposure must be reduced and eliminated. Finally, we hold that the additional burdens which would be created by new military production facilities at SRS would be an injustice to the people in this area. This research was completed money allocated during Round 2 of the Citizens’ Monitoring and Technical Assessment Fund (MTA Fund). Clark University was named conservator of these works. If you have any questions or concerns please contact us at [email protected]://commons.clarku.edu/blueridge/1000/thumbnail.jp

Numerical and experimental investigation of air pollutant dispersion in urban areas

Air pollution is predominantly an urban problem affecting residents living in or around cities. According to the 2014 report of the World Health Organization (WHO), air pollution is now the world’s largest single environmental health risk (WHO 2016). This problem is exacerbated by rapid global population growth (Wania, Bruse et al. 2012), and densely populated urban areas are hotspots of this high risk due to outdoor air pollutant exposure, which also affects indoor air quality. Despite the advancements in urban policies necessary for curtailing air pollutant emissions, it is vital to adopt appropriate strategies in urban planning to manage and reduce outdoor air pollution to minimise the negative impact on public health (Li, Shi et al. 2020). Natural ventilation in the built environment is associated with enhancing outdoor and indoor air quality due to its air pollutant mitigation capacity (Li, Ming et al. 2021). Therefore, natural ventilation capacity deserves special attention from a fundamental perspective, resulting in novel solutions for combating this global problem. This research project focuses on the underlying wind-structure interaction mechanisms involved in the air pollutant dispersion process around buildings. The effect of building cross-section shape and air pollutant density are investigated, and a new fundamental concept of air pollutant emission regions is introduced. The effect of building cross-section shape is further investigated in an idealised generic building cluster based on the fundamental flow structure. Additionally, mean and transient features of air pollutant dispersion based on both continuous air pollutant emission and stagnant air pollutants around a generic isolated building are explored in detail. Finally, two new indices based on air pollutant exposure time in a scaled model are proposed to capture full-scale air pollutant time integrated with air pollutant concentration

Health risk assessment of engine exhaust emissions within Australian ports: a case study of Port of Brisbane

Emissions from ocean-going vessels present a significant health risk to populations surrounding ports and damage the environment. Emissions from ships using heavy fuel oil include substantial amounts of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, and particulate matter. In order to assess the risk of these emissions, a complete methodology has been developed, based on the Australian Environmental Health Risk Assessment Framework. The method includes a detailed inventory of in-port and at-sea emissions using an activity-based approach applying downwash and near-field areas from first principles equations as well as the air-shed regions from CALPUFF dispersion modeling results for Port of Brisbane in 2013. The final risk values are validated against national and European guidelines. Various health impact assessments, as well as carcinogenic and ecological effects, are discussed in depth. This study offers a significant contribution to developing a baseline measurement of the current state of risk from emissions of the ocean-going vessels visiting the port, and suggests that, given the expected development of many Australian ports in the near future, the need for continual monitoring of shipping emissions is an essential and necessary area of research

Scale modeling of an appearance of downwash pattern of hot smoke ejected from chimney in the turbulent cross flow

This study aims to elucidate the scaling law to provide the critical condition on appearance of the downwash pattern of the hot smoke ejected from a chimney in a turbulent cross flow. A specially designed wind tunnel with an active turbulence generator developed by Makita was adopted to offer a quasi-isotropic turbulence field in a lab-scale test facility. A heated jet with smoke is issued into the cross flow from the vertically oriented chimney placed in the test section of the wind tunnel. In this study, the experimental parameters considered are temperature of the heated jet (smoke), jet ejected velocity, and cross-wind velocity, respectively. In the previous work, only two-patterns were observed under the condition studied in quasi-isotropic turbulence condition, such as meandering motion in downstream (Mode V) and downwash (Mode VI). The boundary of these two modes is found to be sensitive to all three parameters, suggesting that all are similarly important to determine the boundary. The observed data are summarized in the physical plane of Reynolds number and modified jet-Froude number, and it was found that all plots are collapsed into the single line. This result suggests that the viscous effect around the chimney plays a role on the appearance of downwash pattern of the hot smoke. It is necessary to check whether the scaling law would work even though the larger scale is imposed, whose Reynolds number based on the chimney scale is large enough and viscous force becomes less important

Proceedings of Abstracts 12th International Conference on Air Quality Science and Application

© 2020 The Author(s). This an open access work distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted reuse, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.Final Published versio