Air Monitoring Study

As part of the ongoing efforts of Shell Deer Park Refining Company and Shell Chemical LP to better understand emissions from their operations, they are investing in new air monitoring programs and testing and evaluating state of the art technology that can further enhance emission monitoring around their facilities.

One such air monitoring study, funded by a $200,000 Shell grant and overseen by a diverse stakeholder group including regulators and NGOs, was conducted during April 2005 at Deer Park to evaluate new technology developed by Cerex Environmental Services.

Key findings of the study include:

• The CEREX Sentry monitoring instrument was portable and easily set up by trained staff
• Continuous monitoring and associated push-notification system allowed for real-time indications of short-term spikes of specified compounds, which provides more information about the potential source of emissions than grab samples or 24-hr composite canister sampling. This data, along with wind direction/speed information, can help to show a relationship with potential emission sources.
• There were numerous cases where elevated concentrations of compounds appeared to be originate from offsite sources drifting onto the site
• Some suggestions were made for improving the software used to analyze the data, and we will continue to monitor the development of this technology

• Click here to download the Shell Deer Park UV Sentry Ambient Air Monitoring Demonstration Study. (pdf, size 0 kB)