A lowering of the emissions factors on which Intel’s air pollution is calculated will be the topic of a public meeting in the Corrales Senior Center Thursday, April 17.

Intel has applied to the Air Quality Bureau of the N.M. Environment Department (NMED) to modify its air pollution permit to reflect greater control of emissions due to recent upgrades.

The meeting begins at 6 p.m. The Senior Center is behind the Village Office at the corner of Corrales Road and East La Entrada.

NMED allows Intel to demonstrate compliance with air quality regulations using calculations for its emissions, rather than continuous measuring and monitoring. Emissions factors for various steps in the microchip manufacturing process are key to those calculations.

According to the Intel public relations consultant who announced the April 17 meeting, “Intel has made recent improvements to abatement equipment allowing methanol removal efficiencies to go from 60 percent to 96 percent.”

The Arizona based PR consultant, Theresa Gunn, gave no indication what changes are expected to produce those results, but company officials previously said improvements to the equipment at the Central Utilities Building (CUB) would be in place this spring.

Pollution problems from the CUB were flagged by two Intel whistleblowers in 2003 as the likely reason why Corrales residents near Intel were chronically ill.

(See Corrales Comment Vol.XXII, No.7 , May 24, 2003 “Intel Insider Charges Cover-Up of Toxic Emissions into Corrales.”)

At the April 17 meeting, Intel officials will also report that their releases of the toxic gas hydrofluoric acid are less than half of what had been reported previously.

That corrosive chemical had been highly suspect as the cause of numerous disorders among nearby residents, especially in combination with other toxins released by the microchip manufacturer.

NMED’s permit allows Intel to release to the air up to 96.5 tons a year of volatile organic compounds and 24 tons a year of federally classified Hazardous Air Pollutants and much more of chemicals classified as Toxic Air Pollutants.

Fred Marsh, the retired Los Alamos Laboratories chemist who led Corrales Residents for Clean Air and Water until last year, often pointed to hydrogen fluoride, or hydrofluoric acid, as a likely culprit. He noted that the hexafluoroethane which Intel is allowed to release is a precursor to hydrogen fluoride, and that relatively high concentrations of it have been measured in Corrales’ air.

One of the citizen groups’ spokespersons, Martha Egan, expressed skepticism about Intel’s claims for recent emissions reductions. “We must be mindful of Intel’s propensity for bamboozlement and baiting-and-switching on these issues.

“We are dealing with people whose history is not an honorable one in dealing with us, their neighbors.”

The recent changes in air pollution controls are apparently the result of accusations made publicly by two former Intel employees in the summer of 2003.

Last year, after a long delay, a report from the N.M. Air Quality Bureau was released after an investigation into assertions by former Intel employees George Evans and Chris Grotbeck.

Evans was a senior industrial hygienist who worked nine years for Intel until he went public with his concerns over Intel emissions into Corrales neighborhoods. Grotbeck was a senior engineer who designed much of the ducting and chemical delivery system for Fab 11.

Their charges of a corporate cover-up of pollution problems emanating from the factories above Corrales were investigated by Air Quality Bureau permit compliance officer Robert Samaniego. His eight-page report dated September 15, 2004 was finally released October 28. It basically corroborates what the two whistleblowers reported, but says there is no proof that the cited pollution resulted in any violations of Intel’s air quality permit.

The Samaniego memo to the NMED Office of the General Counsel names the documents and information received from Grotbeck and Evans and communications with them, as well as documentation from Intel. Samaniego then explains how he looked into the allegations and gives recommendations for how to proceed. In nearly every instance, Samaniego concluded “The information in this document does not indicate the need for any further investigation,” or “There is no further action required by the Department.”

Perhaps the main reason why no further NMED action is required is that Intel has subsequently made most the changes that Grotbeck and Evans insisted on.

The two former Intel employees charged that their supervisors were covering up pollution problems involving equipment in or around the Central Utility Building (CUB) on the east side of the facility, near residential areas. Specifically, they said they were fired or forced out of their jobs after they persisted in arguing that the acid gas scrubbers at the CUB were inadequate, and that chemicals in contaminated waste water from those scrubbers were being released through Intel’s cooling towers.

Evans continues to help residents near Intel try to discover what is causing their illnesses. One of those, Joy Tschawuschian who lives near the top of Windover Lane, frequently sends complaints about Intel pollution to Samaniego. Alerted to one such complaint, Evans suggested why Intel’s industrial odors are frequently noticed in the early morning hours.

“The odors and emissions are always present, but natural weather patterns in the early a.m. such as an inversion, can cause them to stay near ground level. This is a natural process and would occur when it cools off at night.

“I recall a comment that Chris [Grotbeck] had made quite a while back regarding the time involved with use of the Cyanide Destruct System. The system may be kicking out exhaust in the early a.m. as part of a normal shift procedure.

“Again, if its use occurs during the day, too, it may not be an issue given that the plume would rise higher and dilute further away from the nearby homes… no inversion.”

Another explanation, Evans suggested, is that Intel may be using heavy concentrations of nitric or hydrofluoric acid at those times. “Preventive maintenance activities can be shift-based, and may be timed to occur in the early a.m. For example, they may be using the systems that clean large quartz tubes. It involves use of concentrated nitric or hydrofluoric acid, and their impact on the existing scrubbers.”

Later that month, March 29, when Tschawuschian reported a nauseous “mildew” odor coming from Intel, Evans responded, “This sounds like the cooling towers loaded with lots of recycled brine from the acid neutralizing system they use. I used to smell this stuff all the time, too.”