**Atmospheric Mercury Monitoring Services**

**Statement of Work**

Title: Monitoring services to operate Tekran automated mercury
speciation units and related equipment

**Summary**

In March 2005, EPA promulgated the Clean Air Mercury Rule (CAMR) to
reduce mercury emissions from power plants by 2010. In conjunction with
the Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR), mercury emission reductions under
CAMR are expected to reduce atmospheric concentrations and deposition of
mercury. Cutting mercury emissions would also translate to reductions in
methylmercury contamination in fish, particularly in mercury-sensitive
watersheds throughout many parts in the U.S. This would lead to improved
health of people and wildlife that consume fish from these waters. These
reductions will be achieved through implementation of a combination of
independently operated state programs plus an interstate emissions cap
and trade program modeled after the Acid Rain SO~2~ Allowance Trading
Program.

In order to assess the efficacy of these emerging regulatory programs,
scientific information is needed, including a more complete
understanding of the fate of mercury emissions with respect to total
(i.e., wet and dry) deposition, a quantifiable assessment of the sources
(especially coal-fired power plant emissions) contributing to mercury
deposition, and an assessment as to whether or not mercury "hotspots"
exist or may develop over the course of implementing the mercury rules.
At present, EPA lacks the mercury ambient concentration and deposition
data, particularly on dry deposition in source impacted areas, to
adequately assess the atmospheric mercury changes anticipated from the
regulatory programs.

To meet some of these data needs, EPA is collaborating with the National
Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP) membership of Federal agencies,
states, tribes, academic institutions, industry, and other organizations
to establish a new, coordinated network for monitoring atmospheric
mercury species. EPA, working in partnership with NADP, is launching
this network by initially leveraging existing sites measuring
concentrations of atmospheric mercury to form an embryonic network with
data from these sites collected and managed in a central archive,
network-wide operating protocols for comparison of data across sites,
and a centralized quality assurance program. EPA envisions using up to
10 existing sites that are currently making speciated atmospheric
mercury measurements to participate initially in the network. The
objective is to harmonize and assure the quality of the mercury
measurements in a standardized and coordinated manner that is
transparent, involves many partners, and is scientifically credible.

**Background**

US EPA's Office of Air and Radiation (OAR) is collaborating with the
National Atmospheric Deposition Program (NADP) membership to establish a
new, national, coordinated network to monitor mercury in the atmosphere.
The network will measure air concentrations of mercury in its gaseous
and particulate forms, event-based mercury wet deposition, and
meteorological and land-cover variables needed for estimating dry
deposition fluxes. When implemented, the network will serve many
functions:

-   facilitate the calculation of wet, dry, and total deposition;

-   provide data for evaluating predictive and diagnostic models and for
    assessing source-receptor relationships; and

-   build a data set for analyzing spatial and temporal trends.

The network will consist of monitoring stations with a broad range of
classifications including: rural, suburban, and urban;
near-source/high-emissions; sensitive ecosystems; and regionally
representative. Stations will adopt standard operational procedures
based on methods developed from EPA and other research efforts. Data
shall be quality-assured and accessible online. The initial network will
consist of existing sites (i.e., places where Tekran speciation systems
are currently operating, with an accessible measurement record of
atmospheric, speciated mercury concentrations). When quality assurance
programs are established for the new network, including standard
protocols for automated methods, EPA will request the Contractor to
participate in testing protocols, and ultimately adopt these programs.
These programs are currently under development and will necessitate
continued input and buy-in from the broader mercury measurement
community.

The purpose of this project is for a Contractor(s) to provide monitoring
services for the operation of automated Tekran speciation systems. The
objective is to acquire a measurement record of atmospheric mercury
concentrations in elemental, reactive-gaseous, and particulate forms
from different sites across the U.S. OAR requires an accessible database
of long-term mercury measurements for temporally assessing the impacts
of mercury emitting sources affected by federal and state air rules
(e.g., CAIR, CAMR) and to support evaluation and improvement atmospheric
mercury models that provide estimates of dry and total mercury
deposition.

**Tasks**

**TASK 1: Quality Assurance and Standard Operating Procedures**

The Contractor shall be responsible for a quality assurance plan (QAP)
and associated documentation for all aspects of data collection
performed under this contract. The Contractor shall submit the QAP to
EPA for approval as required by EPA Order 5360.1 A2, *Policy and Program
Requirements for the Mandatory Agency-Wide Quality System.* The
Contractor may either revise existing quality assurance documents as
necessary or prepare new documents to meet quality system requirements.
The Contractor shall provide EPA with detailed standard operating
procedures (SOPs) for all aspects of the contract. The SOPs shall
describe the various aspects of the instrumentation, the training of
site operator(s), operational maintenance schedules, calibration
procedures, instrument specifications (i.e., consumable requirements),
repair/replacement of parts, and chain-of-custody protocols for any
modifications and service performed on the instrument systems, data
handling, data reduction and validation. The Contractor shall also
prepare a monthly narrative focusing on deviations from the QAP and
SOPs. Other things to report, when appropriate, include significant
activities/events, problems detected, replacement of major parts
pertaining to the project. The reports shall include a breakdown of
repair/replacement problems (i.e., down time of the instruments), and
the number of visits to the sites by the Contractor or support
organization.

**TASK 2: Site Characterization**

The Contractor shall prepare a report that describes the existing
monitoring site location, including the following information:

-   Latitude, Longitude (DMS or decimal degrees)

-   Elevation (meters)

-   Site sketch (scale drawing of site using NADP template)

-   Digital photos of automated speciated mercury system location in 8
    directions (N, NE, E, SE, S, SW, W, NW).

-   Standardized land use/land cover classification in a circular area
    of 0.5-km radius (\~0.3 miles) around the site. Indicate the
    fraction of surface covered by forest, desert, uncultivated
    grassland, cultivated crops, grazed pasture, swamp or wetland, open
    water, residences, industries, commercial activities, farm
    buildings, etc.

-   Leaf-area index (LAI) quantified directly and/or indirectly and
    information used to determine LAI values within a .5-km radius
    (e.g., instruments, methods, remote sensing), if available

-   Break down of vegetation species within a .5 km radius (e.g., sugar
    maple, black birch)

-   All objects (vegetation, posts, instruments, etc.) greater than 1 m
    tall and their description, direction and distance from the
    automated speciation system within 50 meters

-   Proximity of site from sources of emissions within 100 km (mercury
    and other)

**TASK 3: Site Operations Support**

The Contractor shall be responsible for the calibration, operation, and
maintenance of automated mercury instrumentation and supporting
equipment/materials. This task shall include supporting the operation of
instrumentation and associated equipment/materials/supplies including,
but not limited to:

-   Semi-continuous automated ambient mercury Tekran speciation units
    (2537a, 1130, 1135) Hg0 (5-minute average), RGM, (2-hours), HgP
    (2-hours)

-   Meteorological equipment (hourly)

The Contractor shall deliver to EPA or make available by FTP all raw,
original speciated Tekran output on a monthly schedule, as defined
below. The Contractor shall also deliver to EPA or make available by FTP
validated Tekran speciated data and validated continuous meteorology.
Validated reactive gaseous mercury and particulate mercury delivered on
hourly aggregation. Data shall be presented in ASCII CSV files with
standardized, consistent file format, as specified in the QAP. The
Contractor shall provide to EPA the computer program code (e.g., SAS) or
specific procedures used to determine the validity of the Tekran
speciated datasets.

Payment for Tekran speciated data shall be performance-based, based on
the percentage of valid data submitted to EPA for a given time period
(monthly). The Contractor shall receive full monthly payment if 70% or
more data are valid for the time period. Thirty percent of the data
monthly are allowed to be invalid for the time period to receive full
monthly payment. Payment for valid Tekran data is described in the chart
below.

+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| -   70% or greater valid       | -   = 100% monthly payment          |
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| -   50 - 69% valid             | -   = 80% monthly payment           |
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| -   49% - 11% valid            | -   = 50% monthly payment           |
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+
| -   10% or less valid          | -   = 20% monthly payment           |
+--------------------------------+-------------------------------------+

**Schedule of Deliverables and Timeline**

  ---------- --------------------------------------- ----------------------
  **Task**   **Deliverable**                         **Due Date**

  Task 1     Quality assurance plan, including       Delivered
             specific procedures or logic used to    electronically to EPA
             validate the semi-continuous automated  within 60 days of
             Tekran speciated mercury data           award of contract

             Monthly narrative focusing on           Delivered
             deviations from the QAP and SOPs. Other electronically to EPA
             things to report, when appropriate,     within 10 days after
             include significant activities/events,  the end of the month
             problems detected, replacement of major 
             parts pertaining to the project. The    
             reports shall include a breakdown of    
             repair/replacement problems (i.e., down 
             time of the instruments), and the       
             number of visits to the sites by the    
             Contractor or support organization.     

  Task 2     Site characterization report            Delivered to EPA
                                                     electronically within
                                                     60 days of award of
                                                     contract

  Task 3     Raw, original semi-continuous speciated Delivered
             (Tekran) data (elemental, reactive      electronically to EPA
             gaseous, particulate), including        or made available by
             mercury readings, calibration,          FTP within 10 days
             instrument set-up, and methods data.    after the end of the
             Data shall be presented in              month
             standardized, consistent file format    
             (e.g, .CSV) as specified in the QAP     

             Validated data sets: semi-continuous    Delivered to EPA or
             (Tekran) data (elemental, reactive      made available by FTP
             gaseous, particulate) and continuous    quarterly, by 30 days
             meteorology Validated reactive gaseous  after the end of the
             mercury and particulate mercury         month
             delivered on hourly aggregation. Data   
             shall be presented in ASCII CSV with    
             standardized, consistent file format,   
             as specified in the QAP                 
  ---------- --------------------------------------- ----------------------