The Odor Management Blog

Agadir installs the 1st regional odour surveillance system in Africa

  

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With its enchanting climate and its long beach of 10 km, Agadir has all you need for a great beach holiday. Agadir is a member of a private club of the Most Beautiful Bays in the World. It contains a marina that can accommodate hundreds of pleasure boats and a boardwalk with a stunning view.

Agadir also has a dynamic industrial port that coexists with a vibrant tourism industry. The management of air quality and odours becomes particularly strategic to ensure the quality of life for tourists and locals alike. Furthermore, Agadir seeks sustainability and growth of its industrial activities.

To addresss the issue of coexistence of the tourism and industry in the Agadir area, the Wilaya (county administration) of the Souss Massa Draa Region has set an objective to identify the real-time odour sources responsible for odour pollution experienced in the tourist zone & Agadir city center and  quickly take, in conjunction with industry, appropriate measures to address the sources and maintain comfort of the tourists and citizens of the city of Agadir.

In partnership with the Wilaya, Odotech has recently completed the installation of a regional version of the OdoWatch odor monitoring system for the City of Agadir.

The system consists of a network of electronic noses (eNose™) positioned in the industrial area of ​​Anza and the tourist area of Agadir. The industrial sites specifically covered by the odour monitoring are, for example, fishmeal plants, edible oil processing plant, coffee factories, fishing port and sewage pumping stations.

The managers of plants have access to real-time odour information, allowing them to work with the Wilaya to minimised and avoid the nuisance impact of odours.

The odour surveillance system was commissioned in January 2012 and is the first step of a much wider air quality program for City of Agadir and its suburbs.

You liked this article, you may also be interested in this blog about an innovative Municipal Nuisance Odor Regulation.

Innovative Odor Regulation

  

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Recently, the city of Bourcherville adopted an ODOR NUISANCE BY-LAW. This by-law, or odor rule, is unique because it integrates the latest developments in terms of odor measurement techniques, protocols and standards.

As in many jurisdictions, Boucherville was facing a context of being in a regulatory framework with no odor regulation and on the other hand, the existing municipal odor nuisance bylaw was vague and useless or unenforceable: “nobody should have activities that interfere with the wellbeing of others...”

Boucherville decided, in collaboration with the elected representatives of different communities and the industry to develop an odor regulation that would:

1. Preserve the quality of life of its population
2. Set clear achievable limits to reach for industry
3. be unbiased, objective, quantitative and science based 
4. be easy and affordable to implement and enforce for the city's administration and for industry  

They used the best available approaches and protocols to quantify odors objectively and quantitatively, while minimizing error. It is based on source sampling, odor measurement (dynamic dilution olfactometry) and regulatory approved dispersion modeling.

This by-law applies to all industrial and commercial activities carried out on the territory of the Town of Boucherville. It is based on an incremental odor levels not to be exceeded:

 QUALITY CRITERIA FOR AMBIENT AIR:

a)    At all times, the Outdoor Odor Concentration (OOC) value shall be less than 10 OU/m³;

b)    98% of the time, the OOC value shall be less than the 5 OU/m³.

This provides a maximum odor limit not to exceed at any time to avoid strong odor episodes. On the other hand, there is a quota of hours with reasonably low odors.  

Dynamic dilution olfactometry

The evaluation of the air quality criteria are determined based on state of the art source sampling procedures, olfactometry (EN13725) and regulatory approved dispersion models (AERMOD).

Percentile 98th - odor concentration distribution

The Boucherville municipal odor regulation has been in effect for two years. This odor nuisance bylaw performs well in terms of efficiency. It is well balanced between quality of life preservation, right to produce and ease of enforcement by the authorities. Currently all the industrial companies comply with the odor rule without excessive additional OPEX or CAPEX related to odor control. New industrials and shops have clear targets to meet for their permit applications. The number of odors complaints have dropped substantially and Bourcherville can save productive time of its inspectors for other priorities.

Thanks to political will, Boucherville was able to set the basis of an objective odor nuisance rule that meet its values: innovation, sustainable development, protection of quality of life and  environment and industrial development.