Abstract Description: The Beetham Landfill is the largest landfill on the twin island Republic of Trinidad and Tobago. Located just to the south of the capital city of Port-of-Spain (POS), fires there have been an issue over the years. On April 6, 2022 a fire began in the landfill and spread smoke over POS and its environs. A nearby air monitor measured exceedances of the 24-hr Maximum Permissible Limit (MPL) for Particulate Matter smaller than 10 microns (PM10) beginning on April 7th and lasting through April 10th.
Following the April 2022 event, the Board of Directors for Trinidad and Tobago’s Environmental Management Authority (EMA) requested that EMA conduct an air dispersion modeling project to assess the extent of the unhealthy air quality associated with that fire and to help inform response plans should another fire occur.
The resultant modeling analysis was unique and challenging, from the choice of the dispersion model to the characterization of the source to the calculation of PM10 emissions to issues with representative meteorological data. This presentation will describe the solutions that were developed for these challenges, the results of the modeling, the conclusions that were drawn, and the caveats on the results given the unique aspects of this analysis.
