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Ideas and sources waiting to become memories or features. When one lands, move it out of here and note where it went.

Tom's EPA career

Tom (Thomas J. Logan) worked in the Quality Assurance Division of EPA's Environmental Monitoring Systems Laboratory at Research Triangle Park, North Carolina. The public record has several documents with his name on them. Two are already memories; the rest are leads.

In the app

  • Smoke school, 1982. Technical Assistance Document: Quality Assurance Guideline for Visible Emission Training Programs, EPA-600/4-83-011, May 1982, prepared by PEDCo Environmental with Thomas J. Logan as EPA officer. It covers "smoke school": smoke generators, reading opacity by eye, and certifying observers under EPA Method 9. NEPIS record. Memory: stories-smoke-school, with a memory illustration of an observer logging readings at a smoke trailer.
  • Then and now, 2006. Environmental Technology Verification Report: Monitoring Systems GmbH DioxinMonitoringSystem, June 2006, by Battelle. It thanks "Mr. Thomas Logan of USEPA" for reviewing the test plan and the report. The test used a boiler at EPA's Research Triangle Park facility. NEPIS record. Memory: stories-epa-then-and-now ("You worked at EPA for over 20 years. What changed?"), with a split-scene memory illustration: a 1980s smoke school on one side, a modern monitor on a stack on the other.
  • Smoke reading in court, 1997 to 2000. United States v. Comunidades Unidas Contra La Contaminación, 106 F. Supp. 2d 216 (D.P.R. June 19, 2000), Magistrate Judge Arenas. Under a 1999 Consent Decree, the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) had its Method 9 readers read plumes at its four plants (Palo Seco, San Juan, Aguirre, and South Coast) "about one stack diameter above the top of the stack." PREPA said EPA had approved that. The court traced it to Tom: in a November 3, 1997 letter, "Mr. Thomas Logan, a Senior Environmental Engineer in EPA's Office of Air Quality Planning and Standards," answered PREPA's own description of its plumes (no steam condensation, acid mist forming one stack diameter out) by saying he "would read the opacity at the most dense portion of the plume at one stack diameter." In a July 12, 1999 letter he made clear that advice rested on PREPA's description, and that Method 9 compliance turns on reading the plume "at the greatest point of opacity." The court agreed with EPA: the "one stack diameter" rule originated with PREPA's "misleading and over-generalizing description," PREPA's readings were not Method 9 readings, and PREPA's requests for dispute resolution were denied. Caselaw Access Project, Justia. Memory: stories-smoke-court ("Did your smoke reading work ever end up in court?"), with a memory illustration of an inspector reading a power plant plume from the Puerto Rico shore.

None of these memories has a quote: they come from documents and notes, not Tom's own words. When he talks about any of them, add his line as the memory's sourceQuote.

Leads

  • Opacity monitor audits, 1983. A Compilation of Opacity Monitor Performance Audit Results, by Steve Plaisance (Entropy Environmentalists), prepared for Darryl von Lehmden and Thomas Logan of the Quality Assurance Division, and Louis R. Paley of the Stationary Source Compliance Division. January 1983, EPA-340/1-83-011, 23 pages. One copy at the Indiana State Library, call number EP 4.2:OP 1. Evergreen Indiana record. A possible memory about the colleagues he worked with (von Lehmden, Paley), or a companion to smoke school: the machines that measured smoke alongside the trained eyes.

Illustrations to draw

None waiting. The smoke-in-court brief was delivered as the Puerto Rico illustration (smoke-court-illustration).