Weyburn – Zach Eastman, air quality specialist with Trojan Safety, had a different sort of rig at the oil show compared to what you would normally expect from a safety company. Instead of a mobile treatment centre, he had a van packed full of sensors and computers.
“This is our mobile, downwind air quality monitoring unit,” Eastman said. “It’s outfitted with a suite of different gas monitoring sensors to ensure compliance with ambient air quality guidelines, as well as public health and safety and occupational health and safety.
“Typically the unit is used by a client or by us to maintain a downwind direction from a facility, in a normal flaring conditions, or maybe emergency response, to ensure the emissions are safe for people in the public and the general area.
The gasses include H2S, SO2, total reduced sulphurs and total hydrocarbons. During certain jobs, they will swap out for NOX.
It’s similar to the airpointer systems used by airshed authorities to monitor gases, but this is mobile, and those are not.
The van is always parked so that the inlet, at the front of the van, is upwind and the van’s exhaust is downwind, so it doesn’t cross contaminate its sampling. “This van is fitted with a lithium-ion battery bank to supply up to 24-hours of power, so we can shut the unit off anytime, and there’s enough power to run it 24 hours, on its own,” Eastman said.
It charges from the engine.
The unit is manned in 12-hour shifts, moving whenever the wind direction changes to be downwind. They’ll park on road approaches or lease roads, typically.
This unit is a few years old, built in 2017. Trojan has a fleet of three. They’ve seen usage in Saskatchewan around Lloydminster. “Who knows? Maybe in the future, we’ll be down in Weyburn. We would love the opportunity to work down here,” he said.
“We’ve had some interest, for sure. We’ve had some local public interest, as well as some clients. Hopefully that will turn into some phone calls and some actual work down here.”
He said the oil show went well for them, and a lot of connections were made. A group of schoolchildren were interested, he noted, as well as a few clients.
If there’s enough work locally, he said they would locate one in southeast Saskatchewan. Right now, they need a day’s notice to mobilize.
