Auburn University
OP-2: Outdoor Air Quality

First Transit, the contracted operator of the university's Tiger Transit bus service, does have an anti-idling policy, which states that no bus will idle in excess of 5-10 minutes without passengers on board while not in transit, unless certain exceptions exist. The exceptions include: requirement to maintain communications with dispatch and driver/passenger comfort. In addition to the anti-idling policy, the fleet is relatively new, which means lower-emissions engines and specialized particulate filters. First Transit also utilizes only low-sulfur diesel fuel and operates 12 diesel-hybrid buses on campus, further reduction impacts from emissions. Anti-idling language has also been included in the contracts for our beverage and snack vendors.

The University has been issued a Synthetic Minor Operating Permit (SMOP)as administered by the Alabama Department of Environmental Management (ADEM). The application for SMOP coverage was submitted in 2001 and captures all stationary sources having a capacity ≥ 10 MMBTU. As part of the SMOP application process, AU agreed to self imposed fuel limitations for all stationary sources meeting the previously mentioned BTU criteria. Fuel limitations are for a twelve month period and include: 450 tons of coal, 850,000 gallons of fuel oil and 1 MMCF natural gas annually. These self imposed limitations are evaluated each year and have not been approached since their inception.

Over the last decade, older less efficient boiler systems such as Langdon Steam Plant, Central Steam Plant, Greene Hall have been replaced with newer more efficient boiler systems. The efforts to remove older less efficient boiler systems continues today with projects to connect buildings to the central hot water system. With each new hot water connection an older boiler is removed from service and the buildings heating load is met using our more efficient central hot water system.

Due to form input limitations in STARS, we were required to submit a value for criteria pollutants. However, values for emissions inventory results are not technically zero. As described above, the university does not perform an actual emissions inventory, but does operate with fuel limits in place, thus limiting our weight of emissions below the regulatory values. The SMOP application previously submitted implemented the self imposed fuel limitations mentioned in above. Based on these fuel limitations, the maximum emission potential from all stationary sources would not exceed 100 tons per year (TPY) for any criteria pollutants and below 250 TPY threshold for the Prevention of Significant Deterioration threshold for criteria pollutants. In addition, the SMOP application calculated HAP emissions estimates based on the AP-42 document for coal, fuel oil and natural gas combustion. According to the calculations, the combined emission rate is not expected to exceed the 10/25 TPY threshold for HAPs. Furthermore, Ozone and Lead were not evaluated as part of the SMOP application and administration process.