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CC7 13 93 13:23 FPC`41:BCB 916-444-3314 T-113 P.05/13 F-344 EXAMINATION OF TOXIC AIR EMISSIONS RELEASED DURING THE AUGUST 1888 ROYSTER TIRE PILE FIRE IN TRACY, CALIFORNIA October 8, 1998 Introduction On August 7, 1998, a large pile of scrap auto and truck tires was ignited, apparently by Q spark from :an adjacent weed cutting operation. This tire pile, owned by Royster Tire Disposal Company, was located in Tracy, California and contained six to eight million tires spread aver three acres and stacked in excess of 30 feet high. The ire burned heavily for more than a week and continues to smolder and generate emissions as of the date of this report. An estimated 4.8 million pounds of 112 different organic and metal contarr inants, including approximately 426 thousand pounds of cancer causing compounds, were released to the air, in varying volumes, during the fire. Although this was reportedly the largest scrap tire pile in California, numerous other piles of various sizes in rural and urban areas remain throughout the state. To establish perspective, .t is estimated that one scrap tire per person is generated each year in the United Stater (USEPA, 1997). In California, this transiates to approximately 32 million waste tires generated per year. The purpose of this report is to estimate toxic emissions from the open tire fire and compare those emissions to other sources of emieeions in the San Joaquin Valley, where Tracy is located. Other sources include the individual counties of the San Joaquin Vailey, the entirety of the San Joaquin Valley, a hypothetical tire pile fire one- tenth the siva of the Tracy fire, and the Modesto Energy facility in Stanislaus County, which converts approximately five million waste tires annually into electricity. In preparing this information, emissions data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (USGPA) and the California Air Resources Board (CARE) were used. 2