AUDIT OF A MONITORING AND SAMPLING SYSTEM OF A ROOF VENTS IN AN ALUMINUM SMELTER (EA4)

ISSUE

An aluminum smelter holds a permit from the Ministry of the Environment requiring that the roof vent monitoring system be maintained at all times. In order to meet the requirements of this permit, each system must be equipped with a sufficient number of sampling cassettes to allow representative determination of pollutant emissions.

Therefore, the aluminum smelter conducts a technical audit of these monitoring systems on a regular basis to ensure that they are functioning properly and meet both the requirements of the permit issued by the Ministry of the Environment and the requirements Internal quality control at the aluminum smelter.

STS Canada has been mandated to assess the compliance of the monitoring system and to determine if system improvements are possible and / or necessary.

TECHNOLOGICAL CHALLENGE

As part of the monitoring system assessment, STS Canada was to assess the compliance of each of the components, equipment and methods of the monitoring system to ensure that the system meets the requirements of the permit issued by Ministry of the Environment and the internal quality control requirements of the aluminum smelter.

RECOMMENDED SOLUTION

STS Canada conducted an audit of the critical elements related to roof vent monitoring system such as: general inspection of the roof and samplers, verification of the material and its preparation, measurements, recovery and analysis of samples, calculations, rejection of samples as well as maintenance and calibration equipment.

The results were presented by subject in an inspection report where the nonconformities as well as possibilities for improvement of the systems were mentioned.

RESULTS

The audit demonstrated that the roof vent monitoring system was used according to the specific requirements of the permit issued by the Ministry of the Environment but that certain non-conformities related to calibration and maintenance activities had been observed with respect to procedures of the aluminum smelter.

The audit also demonstrated that the design of the sampling cassettes had to be revised in order to allow the analysis methods of the sampling filters carried out by the external laboratory to be in accordance with the internal procedures of the aluminum smelter.

A corrective action plan has been proposed to correct non-compliances and implement suggested improvements so that the roof vent monitoring system is in line with the internal operating, maintenance and calibration procedures of the smelter.