Corvallis High School students Pablo Garcia, 15, Joe Parmigiani, 15, and Mary Parmigiani, 15, designed and built an air quality sensor to collect readings around the Hollingsworth & Vose glass fiber plant in south Corvallis. The sensor was part of a science fair-winning project that studied incomes and pollutant exposures.
The plant, which has run afoul of environmental regulators in the past, was in the news recently after Corvallis leaders backed a City Hall decision that may ultimately lead to a new and different air emissions discharge permit for the company.
The students’ project didn’t initially target Hollingsworth & Vose. It got its inspiration from Oregon’s wildfire season, according to Garcia. After seeing Mid-Valley Media’s coverage about the glass fiber plant, they recognized a local opportunity to test for particulate matter and nitrogen dioxide.
Information on pollutant concentrations isn’t easily accessible, and the equipment that records it is usually stationary, but the team’s air sensor is easily portable, Garcia said, and can be used indoors and out to gather a wider range of data.
“We hypothesized the lower-income areas would have higher concentrations,” Joe Parmigiani said. “It’s an environmental justice issue that we’re trying to tackle.”
The sensor tests for levels of carbon dioxide, particulate matter 2.5, and nitrogen dioxide. While testing at parks and schools, found in both lower and higher income areas, the team found particulate matter 2.5 was more prevalent around low-income schools. Nitrogen dioxide levels, however, were higher around high-income schools. Testing is ongoing.
“We have one major claim,” Mary Parmigiani said while reviewing past sensor readings, “and that is the factory is releasing pollutants at certain times of the day.”
In an email, however, Hollingsworth & Vose spokesman Andrew Thompson said the glass fiber plant operates at a relatively constant rate throughout the day. Previous monitoring around the facility documented ambient concentrations varying with patterns of wood stove use in the surrounding community, he said.
The state’s Department of Environmental Quality “also documented that the wind in the vicinity of the H&V facility blows from one direction for half of the day and the other direction for the other half of the day, thus complicating monitoring efforts,” Thompson said in the email.
The company can’t make specific comments about the students’ work without having seen it, Thompson said, but officials are pleased to see students participating in STEM — science, technology, engineering, and mathematics — activities.
He added the company has installed a “state-of-the-art emissions control system,” which he said has been highly effective at reducing particulate and fluoride emissions and wastewater discharge.
“In collaboration with DEQ, we collected a year’s worth of CO data through ambient air monitoring around the facility, and it showed extremely low levels of CO,” he said. “The data showed less than a tenth of the (Environmental Protection Agency) air quality standard threshold.”
The student team is also working on a theory that surprisingly low nitrogen dioxide readings are driven by the gas combining with other particles in the air to form worse pollutants, such as ozone, which Garcia said is good up in the troposphere but harmful down below.
“We’re thinking that if we’re recording less NO₂ that means it already combined with other pollutants to make pollutants we aren't testing for,” he said.
The students’ sensor is housed in a plastic frame with a clear top that shows off the inside components, and it connects to a keyboard and mouse. Its “brain” is a Raspberry Pi, a simple and highly module computer that’s popular with electronic hobbyists, which collects air quality data and relays it to a Google Document.
“Overall, sensors are really expensive. Governmental sensors can cost up to $50,000 and even more,” Garcia said. “Our sensor, all the parts combined, cost around $370.”
It’s a cost-efficient design that could have wide application, the team believes. It took from June to November getting the device from the drawing board to fully functional. And they’ve largely done it on their own, with a little advice from professors and a science fair judge.
Garcia said many communities — not just in Oregon but around the world — don’t have access to pollution detection devices, and those are the very places being exposed to higher concentrations of pollutants. The students hope to work with nonprofits and other organizations to distribute their device.
“This factory is just one example of how we can help communities,” Garcia said. He added the team’s device is more versatile than most with its ability to detect three pollutants at once. He said it would be hard to find a sensor with the same capabilities at the same price point.
Winning the local science fair gave the students a ticket straight to the week-long 2022 Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair in Atlanta in May. They are also competing in the Northwest Science Expo in April.
HOLLINGSWORTH & VOSE
Under the previous permit, the Department of Environmental Quality required Hollingsworth & Vose to pay $240,000 in fines and fees for over-emitting but allowed the company to keep operating its riverside facility, 1115 SE Crystal Lake Drive, while it applied for a higher-level permit.
To clinch the new permit from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality, the company first needed to get a statement from the city that its use of the land is compatible with the general vicinity.
When first staff and then Corvallis City Manager Mark Shepard in 2021 determined that it was, a group appealed to the City Council, asking members to overrule Shepard’s decision upholding the prior staff decision and allow for public testimony.
On March 7, the City Council backed him in a 7-1 vote. The local group that filed the appeal claimed city staff disregarded public process, zoning rules and rising pollution levels in issuing the statement.
Shepard declined to comment on the council decision, citing an appeal on the matter that was filed with the Oregon Land Use Board of Appeals prior to the council meeting.
In a statement prior to the council meeting, Hollingsworth & Vose Corvallis Site Manager Cindy Frost called the permit the company is seeking the “most stringent air permit” DEQ can issue for the plant, which she said employs 121 people.
Following the meeting, Frost said in a statement the new DEQ permit would set emissions levels and require testing, monitoring, and reporting to ensure compliance, and won’t authorize any expansion or change in operations. Frost added the DEQ process provides opportunity for written comment and a public hearing.
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