Senior Air Quality Engineer

The Bay Area Air Quality Management District (Air District) is a regional government agency, committed to achieving clean air to protect the public's health and the environment. The Air District accomplishes this goal through regulation of industrial facilities and various outreach and incentive programs designed to encourage clean air choices.

The Air District's jurisdiction encompasses all of seven counties - Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo, Santa Clara and Napa, and portions of two others - southwestern Solano and southern Sonoma.

The Air District is currently accepting applications for the position of Senior Air Quality Engineer in the Refineries Section of the Engineering Division. This is an open recruitment for one (1) vacancy which is a full-time, represented position.

Under general direction, provides lead direction and performs the more complex engineering work in a variety of areas such as permit application evaluation, air pollutant emissions, toxic risk screening and assessment evaluations, compliance audits, modeling, source inventory, source testing, and rule development.

This is the advanced lead level in the engineering series. Incumbents perform the more complex engineering work and lead a variety of engineering projects, coordinating technical data collection and preparing detailed reports. Incumbents are assigned to implement programs that require increased professional knowledge and the use of independent judgement.

This class is distinguished from Principal Air Quality Engineer in that the latter is responsible for providing subject matter expertise and project leadership in the most difficult, sensitive, or critical projects. This class is also distinguished from Supervising Air Quality Engineer in that the latter assigns, supervises, and evaluates the work of assigned staff on a continuing basis.

Supervision is provided by a supervisor or manager. No supervision is exercised over others.

Provides lead direction, coordination, training and work review to staff on routine, continuing, or well-defined tasks.

Coordinates, leads, and reviews the work of engineers, support staff, vendors, and contractors involved in complex, sensitive and controversial engineering projects, studies and audits.

Reviews and evaluates permit applications, including calculating emission rates of criteria air pollutants and toxic air contaminants and permit fees, determining compliance with air quality regulations, recommending best available control technology, defining permit conditions, and issuing authority to construct and/or permits to operate.

Uses a computer and a variety of software to make engineering calculations, enter and retrieve data and to monitor and correct data entry; investigates and corrects errors in the Permitting & Compliance System.

Coordinates on-site compliance inspections of sources and abatement devices. Evaluates compliance and recommends enforcement actions.

Responds to industry, public and Air District inquiries regarding regulation interpretation, permit preparation, various compliance measures and emission calculation methods.

Reviews permit and enforcement files to prepare responses for variance requests, violation notices, case summaries and hearing board referrals. Recommends appropriate actions.

Performs, reviews, and directs the preparation of air quality impact analyses for permits, risk assessments, and environmental impact documents. Recommends approval or denial of permit applications.

Uses emissions models, geographic information systems, and relational databases to prepare, quality-check, and modify large data files on inventory assessment and emissions input to air quality models.

Develops and documents procedures to calculate and forecast pollutant emissions from natural and man-created sources of air pollution.

Develops, calculates, reviews, corrects and documents the emissions inventory. Evaluates accuracy of source emission calculations and methodologies. Analyzes emissions inventory to determine baseline emissions and reduction estimates for rules under development.

Provides engineering expertise in preparing air quality plans, including developing required programs, structuring data and preparing long-range emission forecasts for major industrial classifications.

Conducts special studies and writes technical reports related to research and planning functions, and coordinate activities with Air…