BOMA's 7 Point Challenge

Read more about it here

EPA's Proposed Rule May Significantly Impact Property Owners

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has proposed water quality standards in the State of Florida that would set a series of numeric limits on the amount of phosphorus and nitrogen pollution, also known as “nutrient” that would be allowed in Florida’s lakes, rivers, streams, springs and canals.

BOMA was in attendance at one of the recent public hearings conducted by the EPA and has confirmed that the EPA’s rule, and resulting compliance requirements, would apply to lakes and retention ponds on private property that are currently classified as Class III Surface Water by the Florida Department of Environmental Protection (DEP).

EPA is currently in the Public Comment period and has announced that they are extending the Public Comment Period for an additional 30 days. The public comment period will now close on April 28, 2010. They will also be holding additional public hearings in Florida. The dates, locations, and times of these hearings have yet to be confirmed.

Please see the attached Fact Sheet from EPA and the links below.

EPA site on the proposed rule: http://www.epa.gov/waterscience/standards/rules/florida

Public Comment Site:

http://www.regulations.gov - Enter the following in the “Enter Keyword or ID:” box

EPA-HQ-OW-2009-0596

Our sub-committee needs to hear from managers and owners of property that have lakes and/or ponds that would be affected by this rule.

Thank you.

Murray Greene - Water Sub-Committee Chair

State of Florida's Renewable Energy

Click here to read the outline

UF/TREEO - Resource Center

University of Florida’s Center for Training, Research and Education for Environmental Occupations (UF/TREEO)

ASHRAE - Refrigerants

All CFC (R11 and R12) and HCFC (notably R22 and R123) are being phased out by the Montreal Protocol that many nations have adopted as law.  The phase out does not mean that they will disappear completely as enough gets produced by the allowed levels in the protocol for equipment service. 

The phase out has several consequences, mainly, the sharp increase in the cost of refrigerant that are no longer mainstream (such as R22 for whom no equipment will be manufactured after 2010). This increase should be accounted in the operational budget in the facilities that use them.

R123 (used mainly in centrifugal chillers) will be not be phased out until 2020 and then, with the stocks that will be allowed to exist for maintenance, should be available until the machine that uses it becomes obsolete.

The  future refrigerants will be geared towards environmental friendliness. However, these new refrigerants will have a negative impact in HVAC equipment efficiency.  This impact is expected to be offset partially by improvement in design and manufacturing technology of the equipment itself.

If was recommended by the presenter that when requesting bids for centrifugal chillers going forward, that in addition of requesting a price for a baseline spec unit that all competitive manufacturer can provide, that a bid alternate be requested from the specific manufacturers’ most verifiably efficient machine in the design capacity.  The premium cost over the base bid unit will most likely offer an attractive payback as well as an extension of the useful life of the equipment before it becomes obsolete from an efficiency standpoint.

ASHRAE Seminar pdf