ECMPS Support

The EPA Host System is unexpectedly unavailable at this time. The technical support staff for EPA servers have been contacted. Currently, there is no estimated time for a resolution to the problem.

Note, this also affects access to the CAMD Business System.

We will post more information when it is available.

Although a large percentage of the first quarter emission submissions have been received (97% of the 3,934 expected submissions at the time of this post), there are a number that are outstanding. That means that many people will be hustling to complete their submissions before the end of the day today.

At technical support, we will answer as many questions as we can. However, if you are submitting a technical support request in these last hours of the submission period, please remember that you are arriving late to the queue and your question may not be answered as fast as you would like.

If you find yourself in the last minute mode trying to complete your submissions, please consult the information in the FAQ on what do if you are running out of time to submit.

The EPRI Continuous Emissions Monitoring User Group Conference is being held in Cleveland this year from May 12-14. As reported previously, unlike in past years, there will not be an ECMPS stakeholder meeting associated with the conference.

However, ECMPS Technical Support will be represented in Cleveland. As usual, the U.S. EPA Clean Air Markets Division (CAMD) will have a booth in the exhibition hall. The primary points of contact in the booth will be Craig Hillock from CAMD and Chris Worley from PQA, now part of SRA International. Other folks from CAMD will also be making presentations at the conference, and they will be available in the booth to chat.

If you are in Cleveland for the EPRI CEM User Group Conference, be sure to stop by the CAMD booth and say hello to the folks that will be there. And if you like, you can tell Chris congratulations. He will be happy to explain.

Labels: Stakeholder Meeting

We are about to hit the technical support rush hour which occurs at the end of each reporting period.

As technical support requests increase in the last days of the submission period, please be patient. At technical support, we are working to answer your questions as quickly as we can, but the later you wait to submit your question, the more likely it will not be answered in time. And, if you really wait until the last couple of days to submit a request, it is very likely that you will not get a quick turnaround because there will be a large number of requests ahead of yours in the technical support queue.

Labels: Technical Support, Technical Support Tip

A large number of Part 75 data reporters are affected by the Acid Rain Program (ARP). ARP is a nation-wide program run by the EPA which reduces sulfur dioxide (SO2) emissions through an emissions trading program. This year marks the twentieth anniversary of the Acid Rain Program.

As part of its ongoing educational efforts, the EPA, during this 20th anniversary year, is blogging about the Acid Rain Program. A number of interesting and informative posts on ARP have been posted including, a description of what acid rain is, how emissions trading works, and an explanation of continuous emissions monitoring (CEMS).

As stakeholders, you are familiar with much of this information. However, because the EPA is covering this topic from A to Z, there might be some new information in the blog posts. And, the posts are also an opportunity to share with others what the purpose and context are for all of the data reporting that you do.

Around 10:15 a.m. EDT on Thursday, April 15th, ECMPS Technical Support experienced a power outage which disabled our network. Although the power has been restored, we still have not begun to receive the technical support emails sent to ecmps-support@pqa.com which were sent since the power outage.

All emails sent since the power outage will be received. They simply have been queued up, and once our email server is running again, the emails will be added to our ticketing system. At that point, ECMPS Technical Support will address the tickets in the order in which they were sent.

If you have any questions, please call the technical support telephone number.

Labels: Technical Support

April 1st marks the beginning of the 2010 quarter 1 reporting period. Sources required to report emissions data under the Acid Rain Program (ARP), Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR), and the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI) have 30 days to submit their emissions data to the EPA using the ECMPS Client Tool. Note, some sources have also elected to report under the Mandatory Reporting Rule (MRR) using the Client Tool. These submissions should also be completed during the 30 day reporting period.

During this reporting period, the EPA expects to receive over 3,900 emissions data submissions. Given these large number of files that need to be submitted over the next 30 days, we, at technical support, encourage all sources to start working as soon as possible on the evaluation and submission of their data.

Start Early

We want to encourage sources to start early primarily because, with the large volume of submissions expected, if you have questions, you will get a faster response to your technical support request, the earlier in the month that you submit your request. If you wait until later in the month to begin working with your data and you run into problems that require technical support, your request will be added to a much longer queue than if you had submitted the request earlier in the submission period.

Technical Support Information

Information on getting technical support through the resources on the Web site or by submitting a technical support request has all been consolidated in the Web site's Help section. We would like to highlight that, as necessary, FAQs and Known Issues will continue to be updated throughout the submission period. Hours for technical support are listed on the Contact Us page.

Resubmission Requests

Requests to resubmit QA or emissions data should be made using the Resubmission Request Form. Beginning with the 2009 quarter 3 reporting period, the form was been put online in order to streamline the process of receiving the information for the request and providing the necessary submission access.

Keep Up-To-Date

To keep up-to-date with ECMPS News items, we would suggest subscribing to ECMPS News.

You can receive the ECMPS News posts via email by subscribing to ECMPS News or adding the ECMPS News feed to your RSS Reader. To subscribe via email, simply enter your email address in the box provided on the upper right part of the ECMPS News page and click the Subscribe button. To receive the RSS feed, click on the RSS feed, which also located at the bottom of every page on the Web site.

Labels: Technical Support, Technical Support Tip