MAIRIS
Maine Air Emissions Inventory Reporting System
The Air Toxics and Emissions Inventory Program is the unit of the Maine DEP responsible for the collection, storage and use of air emissions inventory data. It is the program's responsibility to meet and maintain a high standard of precision, accuracy and data completeness that is reasonable, transparent, reproducible and comparable. The federal Consolidated Emissions Reporting Rule (68 FR 39682) also requires the State of Maine to collect and submit an annual emissions inventory from point sources. Maine's companion rule, 06-096 CMR Chapter 137, defines the requirements for facilities to file such information.
To collect emissions inventory information from Maine facilities, the DEP has relied for more than a decade on a software program known as Satellite i-STEPS. Moving forward, however, the Maine DEP sought to modernize data collection through a web-based application.
In October 2006, Maine DEP received a U.S. EPA Exchange Network Grant to fund development of a new web-based reporting software tool that would speed the collection of data from facilities, provide higher quality and transparency of that data, and format it to meet EPA submittal requirements. After an open and competitive bid process, Perrin Quarles Associates, Inc. of Charlottesville, Virginia was selected.
The Maine Air Emissions Inventory Reporting System (MAIRIS) will be a web-based, software solution that will meet the following program objectives and requirements:
- Consolidated Inventory Package – The inventory tool must seamlessly combine the criteria and hazardous air pollutant and greenhouse gas inventories, taking advantage of commonalities, such as facility identification and contact information, stack and geospatial coordinate information, and fuel throughputs. The inventory tool must also be flexible enough to easily accept both process- and facility-level emissions data. As a result, the implementation of the software will significantly reduce the amount of time facilities need to input data as compared to the existing inventory system.
- Quality Control Validation and Quality Assurance Feedback Tools –- The software solution must provide instantaneous, quality control validation to facility users by vetting data inputs and providing extensive on-line help at every step. Prior to upload to the production database, Maine DEP staff must be able to perform a number of QA/QC checks, including comparison to last year's data, and using electronic communications, notify companies about the discrepancies in their submission.
- NIF-Compliant, XML-Formatted Data, Deliverable to EPA via Maine Exchange Network Node – Finally, Maine DEP must be able to exchange quality data easier with EPA and other network node partners by ensuring that the software solution exports NIF-compliant data (in whatever version EPA settles on in the next year) using the XML format and that this data is distributed via the node.
It is anticipated that the MAIRIS application will be available for facilities to report their 2009 annual air emissions inventory in 2010.
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