Research roadmap: the next useful improvements

Updated 5 November 2026

The October application now supplies current proposed flare and venting cases, source locations, physical dimensions and emission rates. The immediate priority is to obtain its underlying community results and calculation files, then assess them alongside local weather and monitoring evidence. Rebuilding an assessment from scratch is no longer the first step.

Explore the scenarios · Read the applicant’s results · Research package

What is available now

1. Recover the existing community calculations

Request: receptor-keyed results for upset flaring and thermal-oxidizer-trip venting; the 16 listed sensitive receptors and Squamish grid; exact receptor coordinates/heights; hourly concentration files; source groups; and post-processing for chemistry, background and averaging statistics.

Why this comes first: the applicant has already modelled site terrain, weather and source behaviour. Recovering those outputs is the shortest route to assessing more communities without treating a coloured PDF contour as a measurement.

Ready when: each reported community value can be traced to a receptor, operating case, pollutant, averaging period, statistical rule and background treatment. Community and Nation-area coverage must also be checked; one point does not represent an entire neighbourhood. The public-file check did not recover the electronic outputs. A specific records request is prepared and remains unsent.

2. Reconcile emissions and the physical release points

Request: unrounded stream and species worksheets; event time histories; heat and combustion assumptions; standard-temperature and moisture conventions; final flare-tip mixture conditions including pilots/purges; and the condensate-tank vent’s location, height, diameter and release direction.

Why it matters: the application physically routes acid and flash gas to the flare, but condensate-storage vapour to a tank-top pressure-control vent. Its assessment aggregates storage at the flare. These locations should remain distinct when reconstructing the release. The CO₂-rich vent mixture also requires a suitable density/entrainment treatment; a hot-flare plume calculation is not automatically applicable.

The new vent-source audit calculates conditional individual-compound mass rates and tests flow conventions. Those are source calculations, not neighbourhood concentrations. Total VOC remains distinct from benzene.

Ready when: source mass, heat, moisture, phase, geometry and timing are internally consistent, with an explicit treatment for each physical source. No generic factor or rounded composition should silently become an individual-compound exposure prediction.

3. Test winds at the elevations that matter

Request: quality-controlled source-site and corridor weather, sensor/exposure and averaging metadata, wind and temperature profiles during inflow, outflow, reversals and stable periods, plus the regional model’s production configuration and assimilation inventory.

Why it matters: a surface northerly does not establish an inversion or the wind at plume height. Regional and downscaled model checks have not yet demonstrated the necessary local performance. The nearest regional cell also has terrain above the application’s nominal physical tip elevation, so source heights cannot simply be applied above that model terrain. Current height-support check.

Ready when: the terrain/height mapping is explicit, observed and modelled sampling intervals are compatible, and a declared set of representative episodes demonstrates usable wind performance. Retain failed regimes and missing observations. Account for assimilated observations before calling a comparison independent. Detailed weather evidence and acquisition routes.

4. Resolve terrain and complete receptor coverage

Request: the current grading drawing identified in the application, its adjusted GEO.dat and adjustment method, the vertical-datum tie, and complete occupied-area/community receptor definitions.

Why it matters: the application’s 8.5 m ASL source grade differs from the retained CDEM surface at the source. Neither an arbitrary terrain offset nor a finer map resolves grading, datum or shoreline representation. Nation communities, Britannia Beach and sensitive locations need the same assessment criteria as Squamish townsite.

Ready when: source and receptor elevations share a documented reference, physical source locations are retained, and the modelling domain covers relevant occupied areas beyond the display boundary. Community coverage audit.

5. Turn concentrations into careful public comparisons

Use pollutant-specific concentrations, concurrent or otherwise justified background, and matching averaging/statistical rules. NOx needs an explicit NO₂ treatment. Primary PM₂.₅ is not a complete secondary-particle calculation. Total VOC cannot be compared with an individual benzene limit. Odour objectives, health-based objectives and reporting requirements must remain distinguishable.

Ready when: every public comparison identifies the source case, weather basis, receptor/height, pollutant, averaging period, background and benchmark. Exceedance colours must not imply a probability of illness or that concentrations below an objective guarantee no effect. Qualified independent review should assess the input choices and interpretation as well as the code. B.C. objectives and methods · Reproducibility package.

How to use the site while this work continues

The Explorer is a conditional scenario display using assumed winds and an air-layer average. It is not a ground-level exposure forecast. The applicant-results report is a separate site-specific assessment summary, with the reported locations and statistical rules retained. Neither is evidence of an actual flare event’s effects on a household.

The community tool is already public. Additional internal precision studies are optional; the records above take priority because they can materially change where a plume travels and what concentrations people could encounter. Existing observations and files should be sought before commissioning new monitoring equipment.

September research-plan archive · Detailed modelling roadmap — dated background · Detailed emissions roadmap — dated background