Over the course of these remaining seven units, we will be developing a course project. We will do a single section of the course project in every unit, completing one section of the course project in each unit, and then adding the subsequent work in the following unit. This unit work will be in the form of mini projects, and in Unit VIII, you will submit the entire project. Throughout the course, your instructor will provide you with feedback on every unit you submit; therefore, it is important to implement the feedback you receive in the upcoming unit(s). You will be required to integrate an online resource in your final submission. The Business Continuity & Disaster Recovery Reference Center is a good online database for this course project.

Our course project will be to develop a document titled A Permit By Rule (PBR) Application for an Interior Surface Coating Facility that will serve as a simulation of our work as a contract environmental engineer to a small vehicle body shop located in the state of Texas.

The Scenario:

You have been contracted with a vehicle body repair shop named Texas Car Body Repairs, USA to engineer and write a state (Texas) air permit application for a carefully designed interior lining (painting) facility. According to Texas state laws and EPA laws, the facility must have an air permit before construction begins. Once the facility is completed, the construction air permit will then become the operational air permit for the facility. As a result, your client wants the air permit application to automatically align the interior surface coating facility into operational compliance with state and federal air quality laws. Consequently, it is extremely important for you to write the air permit application to meet the air permit criteria using the state guidance document and considering the equipment and chemicals already planned for the facility operations.

Your client has presented you with the following specifications regarding the facility operations plan:

The client has designed an interior coating spray painting system that allows the interior of a vehicle to be coated (such as for new vehicles, or vehicles being restored after fire damage or other catastrophic interior damage). The operations will involve a stripped-down vehicle body being brought into the facility’s shop. The shop is a steel building with a finished concrete floor and a paint booth for each vehicle. The vehicle will be placed in the spray booth. The booth will be opened at one end of the booth for makeup air. The exhaust air will flow through an exhaust chamber at the other end of the vehicle (see Cross-Draft Automotive Spray Booth in Appendix F of the TCEQ Regulatory Guidance Document). For each vehicle, once the liner application operations are completed the forced curing (drying) operations will immediately commence.

Instructions

1. Closely read the Required Reading assignment from your textbook, Appendix B and Appendix K of the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality (TCEQ) Regulatory Guidance document (Click here to access the document), and the Unit Lesson within the Study Guide. Consider reading the Suggested Reading.

2. Using APA style (title page, abstract page, body with level 1 headings, and a reference page) for a research paper, begin drafting a proposal document. You will add to this document in every unit with another level 1 heading.

3. Make your Unit II work your first level 1 heading titled “General Considerations for Operation,” and describe the scenario that is presented above. You may find it convenient to present the tabulated information in your General Considerations section of the permit for future reference throughout the rest of the course. This submission (and every submission through Unit VII) needs to be a minimum of at least a one page in length, double-spaced.

NOTE: In the following units (Units III through VIII), the unit lessons will contain information related to the interior surface coating operation by means of practical examples. Consequently, it is imperative that you read the unit lessons within the study guide every week, use the TCEQ’s (2011) regulatory guidance document, and consider the current (as well as previous) material from your textbook in every unit. This project will serve as a comprehensive demonstration of your applied learning of engineering air quality.

Information about accessing the Grading Rubric for this assignment is provided below.

Unit III Mini Project

As a continuation of our course project due in Unit VIII, A Permit By Rule (PBR) Application for an Interior Surface Coating Facility, complete the next section, “VOC and ES Content per Vehicle,” of your proposal by following the instructions carefully, and then submit your continued draft for grading.

Instructions

1. Closely read the Required Reading assignment from your textbook, the TCEQ (2011) document, and the Unit Lesson in the Study Guide.

2. Open your proposal draft from Unit II and make any improvements to your draft using your professor’s feedback from the Unit II project assignment.

3. Open the Unit III Study Guide, read the Unit III Lesson, and review the calculations demonstrated and explained regarding VOC and ES weights per gallon and per vehicle for our scenario.

4. Make your Unit III work your second level 1 heading titled “VOC and ES Content per Vehicle.” Describe and demonstrate (illustrate) the calculations for both the VOC and ES weights for this section of your project.

You are required to describe and demonstrate the VOC and ES calculations in a minimum one-page, double-spaced document.

Information about accessing the Grading Rubric for this assignment is provided below.