7 Days: Significant digits
Less than a week before your Tier2 report is due…we’re getting into minutiae now
I was a junior in engineering when the HP35 calculator came out. (Yes, young people, I am probably one of the few people left who, if pushed, could calculate with a slide rule) (and still have a couple of them stashed away somewhere, one fancy one that does fancy math, and one mahogany and ivory simple one from my dad).
With a $395 price point for the HP35 (the equivalent to $2,444 in 2020), not many of my colleagues sprung for one.,
Shortly thereafter, professors starting handing out failing grades on assignments that had been turned in with all of the digits that the calculator displayed, and the traditional lecture on Significant Digits took on new meaning..
(And for a further blast to the past, our first computer software project was using mainframe timesharing. The dual floppy disk Personal Computer came out shortly after that. This was good because we had determined that the client, a stabilization TSDF, couldn’t afford to run our program on timeshare mainframes (“do you know haw many minimum wage phone people I could hire for that much?”) and we couldn’t afford to develop on them.)
As my friend used to say, “the good old days. Ptoooey”
But you had to start somewhere and they got us here…
Anyway, back to significant digits…
Here’s the skinny on the level of precision to which you might want to report:
EPA has no FAQs around significant digits
But back when trainings were held in person, the question of significant digits invariably came up (I would raise if if no one else did). Some people were familiar with the concept (engineers, scientists), many were not.
The answer we got was “report to 2 significant digits, if possible”. When pressed, the instructor would admit that in many cases 1 significant digit was all the confidence you could provide in the value of the data
For those of you not into flowcharts, there are lots of tutorials out on the web if you need/want to go into this in more detail., I didn’t personally review any of them.
That’s right, the fewest number of significant digits
This is mainly relevant if you report in a state like Florida where they want the Maximum on Site in actual pounds, not in a Range Code. It will also be relevant when you get to Toxics Release Inventory TRI reporting for your July 1 report.
And here are some examples:
And just another blast from the past, the computer on the right was one of the first dual floppy disk (540kb of storage) Personal Computers PC’s which retailed for about $10,000 (fully spec’ed out closer to $20k).
A typically year long delay in getting an EHS software project under way would be the client getting the PO through since it would need to go on the next year’s budget. .
And this was a stand-alone unit, remember, no ethernet network or internet.
The computer on the right was an Eagle 10Meg (yes, that’s megabytes not gigabytes) “luggable” PC weighing 38 pounds. It cleared the space under your airline seat by about 2mm all the day around (I was challenged on it regularly by flight attendants when I tried to carry it on). With portable printer, my carry on weight was about 84 pounds when I checked it once.
More tomorrow, here’s to March 2nd!
Community outreach: What experience have you had with significant digits and regulatory reporting?
#SARA312 #SARATierII #SARATier2 #EPCRA #EGLE #March1EPAReportDeadline #ThresholdDeterminations #ExtremelyHazardousSubstances #EHS #ThresholdPlanningQuanitity #TPQ #EPAFAQ #CERCLAFAQ #SARAFAQ #EHSThresholdDeterminations #SignificantDigits #Accuracy #HP35 #Sliderule #DualFloppyDiskPC #Eagle10MegLuggable
EPA Resources: EPA FAQ website link and the EPCRA SARA Hotline
I’m leaving the 2 key sections around getting help on any FAQ posts, how to get into the Tier2 FAQ and the EPCRA SARA Hotline number.
Remember that to Filter for Tier II Reporting only:
you will first need to check Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know on the main page,
which will give you the option to check Tier II Reporting (EPCRA 311/312),
after which you will want to uncheck Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know
so that you see 146 FAQs instead of 303 (the balance of the 303 are unrelated to 311/312)
Another non-intuitive and annoying (to me) feature of the way the FAQ’s work is that if you search, the web page unfilters before searching, so you no longer see only Tier2 FAQs. When you go back, you are still unfiltered.
So be sure to include the term Tier II in your search if you don’t want to expand the search to other (unrelated for now) topics.
I’ve provided both a link to the main (filtered) Tier2 only FAQs, and have included the hyperlinks at the bottom of each FAQ that I highlighted. So you can click those and still be looking at the appropriately filtered FAQs in a separate window if you want.
The number of results may vary as more get added
Link to EPA FAQs filtered for Tier2 only
Below is one of the most useful, where to call for help. In my experience, while you may experience some “on hold” time, the information when you get to a person will be excellent and cross referenced to the particular citations or other resources clarifying the question.
Michigan Environment, Great Lakes, and Energy EGLE links from all three 2022 SARA 312 virtual training course webinars:
I’m reposting these links with my daily Tier2 post because they are so useful.
You can sign in and watch/listen even if you didn’t sign up for the webinar series.
RECORDING LINK FOR SESSION 2: Wed Jan 19, 2022.
Really good example on batteries. This is the “in the weeds” how to conduct your threshold determinations episode: https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/recording/4027906237723673347
I talked to Mike Young, one of the presenters, right after the first webinar. He said that it’s not unusual for them to take phone calls from people from other states (with the warning to confirm that your state doesn’t have differences in their requirements compared to Michigan).
RECORDING LINK FOR SESSION 1:
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/recording/7957790593170499843
Michigan uses Tier2 Manager for report submission, which is a Michigan-specific program. If your state uses different software, you will need to review its specific requirements.
RECORDING LINK FOR SESSION 3:
https://attendee.gotowebinar.com/recording/2763075340284995085
If your state uses a different software program there may be some differences, but this webinar will probably also cover how to determine the Hazard Ratings, how to enter Locations, and other details associated with report submission. I’ll post the replay when it becomes available.
PRESENTATION: (I wasn’t able to attach a copy of the presentation, email the link below and they will send it to you)
SARA TITLE III – TIER II REPORTING WEBSITE: http://www.michigan.gov/sara
MICHIGAN FACILITIES’ GUIDE TO SARA TITLE III: https://www.michigan.gov/documents/deq/deq-oea-saraguidebook_509720_7.pdf
CONTACT INFORMATION:
Mike Young and Adam Pohl
517-284-7272
