FORECASTER • March 9, 2023
The city of South Portland will consider installing air quality monitors closer to petroleum tank farms to more accurately measure any emissions. Adding the monitors was among the recommendations, first broached in 2021, in a report from the Clean Air Advisory Committee, which the City Council formally adopted Tuesday. The Clean Air committee said those monitors could measure “burst emissions,” the vapors resulting when a tank is being filled, to provide the city with better data on the sporadic impact of burst emissions on air quality. The committee also recommends requiring tank farm owners to give advance notice of when tanks will be filled. Odors from the more than 100 oil tanks in South Portland have been an issue in the city for decades, but concerns about their potential toxicity came to the forefront in 2019.