Bowie, Ted

Ted Bowie has over 20 years of experience consulting with clients on issues related to odor, air quality, and human health risk assessment. He has expertise with air permitting and compliance, air dispersion modeling, emission estimation and controls, odor assessment, risk assessment, and industrial hygiene. He is a registered professional engineer (PE) in California and Texas, a certified industrial hygienist (CIH), and has provided litigation support on matters related to air emissions, exposure assessment, odors, and indoor air quality.

Titles from this speaker

Community-Based Odor App: A Tool to Engage the Community in Solving Odor Problems

Abstract

Introduction: Odor complaints often originate from neighbors near odorous sources, such as industrial facilities. Typically, when a complaint is filed with a regulatory agency, the agency sends an inspector to the location of the complaint to verify the odor. Data recorded from this method is often sporadic and can be unreliable, as many inspectors do not arrive at the site for hours or even days, long after the odor has vanished. This paper presents the conceptual framework for a community-based odor app ('Community OdorApp') that provides a mechanism for members of the public to report odors directly through a web-based program. The Community OdorApp overcomes many of the limitations of current odor complaint and response approaches and offers a cost-effective strategy for facilities, municipalities, and/or other odorous sources to engage with their communities. Background In 2013, Ramboll US Consulting, Inc. introduced a facility-based odor app ('Facility OdorApp'), which is a data acquisition and management system that allows facilities to track their own odor patrol efforts. The Community OdorApp aims to build on the Facility OdorApp, overcoming some of the limitations of the Facility OdorApp by integrating public participation (i.e., crowdsourcing). Crowdsourcing is growing in popularity and utility. Currently, there are numerous apps that leverage crowdsourcing to provide a public benefit (e.g., Waze, MiFlight, Street Bump). The Community OdorApp provides a public benefit not only by making it more convenient to report odors, but also by providing the community with information about odor 'hotspots' and allowing the community to participate in understanding and potentially addressing odor problems. While there are some existing applications, deployed or under development, that are designed to record odors reported by the community (e.g., Smell PGH, Smell MyCity, EPA's Odor Explore), these applications have limitations, such as lacking weather data to trace the source(s) of the odors and not providing a variety of useful analytical tools to analyze odor trends. As discussed below, the Community OdorApp has features that advance the state of the science, allowing users of the app to analyze and act upon the data collected. Design The Community OdorApp, which operates on any web-enabled device (e.g., computer, tablet, smartphone), collects data from the public via a browser-based form that has a simplified, user-friendly interface. The app requires that the user share their location to verify the authenticity of the report but does not require the user to enter any other identifying information. The user can then input the date and time of the odor occurrence, which allows the app to retrieve contemporaneous weather data from nearby weather stations. The next screen on the app requests odor-specific information, including the offensiveness of the odor and a description of the odor. Next, the app requests information about odor duration. Finally, there is a comment section for additional information, and then the report can be submitted. Once a report is submitted, it is immediately incorporated into the app's backend database, which offers various reporting features and analytical tools, including raw data download, site map, heat map, and several data analysis charts (see examples in Figure 1). With this information, interested parties can quickly analyze the data, identify potential odor sources/trends, and take action to address odor issues. Discussion The Community OdorApp offers numerous advantages over traditional odor complaint and investigation approaches, including: -Faster response to odor complaints since the data gets reported directly to the sponsoring entity who can respond immediately rather than having to wait for a regulatory agency to send an inspector to the site. -The app saves time for the complainant since complaints can be logged directly over the internet rather than having to call the local regulatory agency. -The app allows odors to be reported from a broader geographic area, as it does not rely on odor surveillance restricted to fixed routes which is often the case with facility-based odor patrol. -The app typically provides more complete information on odor start/end times and duration because the complainant often lives or works at the location of the odor and therefore has knowledge of the history of the odor, unlike an inspector who may only visit the location for a brief period. -The data for the app is free since it is provided by the public, rather than having to pay an employee or third party to collect the data as is frequently done with facility-based odor patrol. -The app can be used to educate and inform the public by summarizing key findings via periodic reports, which can be posted on the app's landing page. Despite these advantages, the Community OdorApp also has some limitations/challenges, such as: -Since the Community OdorApp collects data via a public-facing website, abusers of the app could enter erroneous or false data. However, the Community OdorApp has features that are designed to protect against this. Specifically, the app documents the location of each user via GPS or IP address, so it is possible to ascertain if complaints are coming from a single or appropriate location. - Since the Community OdorApp collects location information on each user, this raises potential data privacy concerns. To help protect data privacy, the app uses a differential privacy strategy, where the location of each complaint is shifted slightly to still locate the odor event without revealing the exact location of the user. In addition, the app is built on the Google App Engine, which has multiple layers of security to protect data once it has been submitted. -The quality of data submitted to the Community OdorApp could be questionable since the users are not typically trained odor inspectors. However, the app helps to maintain data quality by presenting the user with a simple form with mostly pre-determined, forced-choice options (e.g., drop down menu, radio button). This data collection approach also helps to ensure that data is recorded in a consistent fashion to facilitate data analysis and reporting. -The Community OdorApp works best when it has many users; however, promoting the availability of the app can be a challenge. The entity sponsoring the app will likely need to utilize multiple communication channels (e.g., email distribution lists, phone calls, text messages, video, radio, social media, etc.) in order to attract users. Implications The Community OdorApp has the potential to shift the paradigm of odor complaints from one in which neighbors are working against an odorous source to one in which neighbors are working together with the odorous source to provide useful data that can help identify and solve odor problems. In this regard, the Community OdorApp has the potential to strengthen the relationship between odorous sources and their neighbors, thereby allowing critical public service facilities such as wastewater treatment facilities and landfills to continue operating in the communities they serve. The app helps everyone gain a better understanding of odor patterns affecting local communities and provides data to create solutions. With the success of this app, it could lead to the development of many more crowdsourcing apps with environmental applications (e.g., noise pollution, air quality, wind, water quality, wildfires, natural disasters, etc.).

This paper was presented at the WEF Odors and Air Pollutants Conference, May 16-19, 2023.

SpeakerBowie, Ted

Presentation time

10:45:00

11:15:00

Session time

10:45:00

11:45:00

SessionCommunity Relations and Odor Complaints

Session number2

Session locationCharlotte Convention Center, Charlotte, North Carolina, USA

TopicCommunity Relations and Odor Complaints