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EPA Protocol Gas Verification Program
Citation:
Wright, B. EPA Protocol Gas Verification Program. Annual Meeting of Air and Waste Management Association, Raleigh, NC, June 22 - 25, 2015.
Impact/Purpose:
In 2008, EPA's Inspector General (IG) conducted an audit of EPA Protocol Gases to determine whether their accuracies meet the requirements of the EPA Acid Rain Program. As a consequence of the audit, the IG recommended that EPA implement Protocol Gas Verification Programs (PGVPs) to oversee the accuracy of EPA Protocol Gases. Since 2010, the PGVPS have conducted several audits. This presentation disseminates the audit results to the air pollution control community.
Description:
Accurate compressed gas calibration standards are needed to calibrate continuous emission monitors (CEMs) and ambient air quality monitors that are being used for regulatory purposes. US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) established its traceability protocol to ensure that commercially-prepared standards are traceable to the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST). The protocol is an analytical procedure that specialty gas producers use to assay the standards with NIST reference standards and to estimate the uncertainty of the certified concentrations. EPA does not have direct oversight of the production of the standards. In 2010, EPA established a Protocol Gas Verification Program (PGVP) to determine that accuracy of a representative sample of the standards and to disseminate the results of the verifications to end users of the standards. The verifications are performed by laboratories at NIST and EPA Regions 2 and 7. This presentation summarizes the results of the verifications to date.