Overall Rating Silver - expired
Overall Score 50.39
Liaison Marianella Franklin
Submission Date Aug. 28, 2015
Executive Letter Download

STARS v2.0

University of Texas Rio Grande Valley
OP-2: Outdoor Air Quality

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 0.50 / 1.00 Richard Costello, PhD
Director
Environment Health and Safety
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

Does the institution have policies and/or guidelines in place to improve outdoor air quality and minimize air pollutant emissions from mobile sources?:
No

A brief description of the policies and/or guidelines to improve outdoor air quality and minimize air pollutant emissions from mobile sources:

Not Applicable


Has the institution completed an inventory of significant air emissions from stationary sources on campus?:
Yes

A brief description of the methodology(ies) the institution used to complete its air emissions inventory:

The inventory is a collaborative effort between the UT Pan Am Environmental Health and Safety (EH&S) Department. The first step in the was for the UT Pan Am EH&S department to contact the campus maintenance department to gather information needed to calculate emissions. This was accomplished via an e-mail sent to the individuals responsible for various areas of the campus. The e-mail requested that the responsible individuals identify all potential sources of air emissions in their areas and included a preliminary listing of typical emission sources at Universities taken from the December 8, 1997 Seminar materials and carried out through 2002. The EH&S department also requested that pertinent data on capacities (i.e., firing rates for boilers) that may affect emission potential be gathered.
This information was then compiled and provided to EH&S for its review. Upon completing its review EH&S and UT Pan Am participated in a teleconference to discuss the sources of information, factors that would pose physical or operational limits on emissions potential, and conservative assumptions that might be used in the analysis. The teleconference was also used to identify any additional information that was needed to calculate emissions. This additional information was then gathered by UT Pan Am and provided to EH&S.
The information was used along with published emission factors, mass balance principles, and conservative assumptions as appropriate to obtain a conservative estimate of site-wide PTE as documented in Section 3.0 of this report. A draft version of this report was then provided to UT Pan Am for its review, and UT Pan Am’s subsequent comments incorporated as appropriate into this final document.


Weight of the following categories of air emissions from stationary sources::
Weight of Emissions
Nitrogen oxides (NOx) 54.76 Tons
Sulfur oxides (SOx) 1.50 Tons
Carbon monoxide (CO) 12.46 Tons
Particulate matter (PM) ---
Ozone (O3) ---
Lead (Pb) ---
Hazardous air pollutants (HAPs) ---
Ozone-depleting compounds (ODCs) ---
Other standard categories of air emissions identified in permits and/or regulations ---

A brief description of the institution’s initiatives to minimize air pollutant emissions from stationary sources, including efforts made during the previous three years:
---

The website URL where information about the institution’s outdoor air quality policies, guidelines or inventory is available:
Data source(s) and notes about the submission:
---

The information presented here is self-reported. While AASHE staff review portions of all STARS reports and institutions are welcome to seek additional forms of review, the data in STARS reports are not verified by AASHE. If you believe any of this information is erroneous or inconsistent with credit criteria, please review the process for inquiring about the information reported by an institution or simply email your inquiry to stars@aashe.org.