GA EPD Spring Visible Emissions Evaluation Training (Smoke School) Offerings

January 23, 2014

Dear Fellow Smoke Readers,

The Georgia EPD Smoke School Team wishes all of you a Happy New Year! Hope you are all doing well and looking forward to a new year of training and camaraderie.

The dates and locations for the Spring 2014 GA EPD Visible Emissions Evaluation Training and Certification program are now in the GECO Registration Module and ready for your registration.  In our quest to continue to improve service to you, we have again added a new location for Field Certification testing. Please pay attention to the dates as you pre-register. One significant change is that we are offering a certification day in Crawfordville, Georgia to serve the Eastern Central and Northeast Georgia area. All other locations will remain as in the Fall of 2013. For those who in the past regularly attended the third day at Reed Bingham, please note that we continued with the two day schedule and you need to plan accordingly.  

The specific dates and locations of the Spring 2014 Visible Emissions Evaluation Training Class and Certification program are:

April 1 – Tellus Science Museum, Cartersville, (8:30 AM Certification test runs begin) (April 2 will be a back-up date in case of inclement weather)

April 3 – Alexander Hamilton Stephens Historic Park, Crawfordville, (8:30 AM Certification test runs begin) (April 4 will be a back-up date in case of inclement weather)

*April 8 - Reed Bingham State Park, Adel, (8:00 AM Registration, 8:30 AM Class begins, 1:00 PM Certification test runs begin)

April 9 - Reed Bingham State Park, Adel, (8:30 AM Certification test runs begin)

April 10 - Perry Go Fish Center (Behind the State Fairgrounds I-75 Exit 134) (8:30 AM Certification test runs begin) (April 11 will be a back-up date in case of inclement weather)

*April 15 - Atlanta Tradeport, Atlanta, (8:00 AM Registration, 8:30 AM Class begins)

April 15 - Panola Mountain State Park, Stockbridge, (1:30 PM Certification test runs begin)

April 16 – 17 - Panola Mountain State Park, Stockbridge, (8:30 AM Certification test runs begin)

*April 22 - Skidaway Island State Park, Savannah (8:00 AM Registration, 8:30 AM Class begins, 1:00 PM Certification test runs begin)

April 23 - Skidaway Island State Park, Savannah (8:30 AM Certification test runs begin) 

April 24 - Skidaway Island State Park, Savannah (8:30 AM Certification test runs begin and run until 12:00 AM) 

The “*” highlights classroom dates – We are only offering classes at the Atlanta Tradeport, Skidaway Island SP and Reed Bingham SP.

The AH Stephens Historic Park location is the result of requests from the Augusta area participants as well as mineral processing companies in the North Central and Eastern part of the state.  We are testing this site to see if it helps reduce travel costs for nearby Smoke Readers. We also hope it helps reduce the number of participants in the Atlanta class. Attendance will determine whether future schools can be offered at this location. Also, the park staff reminded us that they have campsites and cabins for rent should you be interested in an overnight stay. The park is rather isolated and restaurants and fast food establishments are about 25 – 30 miles away. We will be bringing our picnic baskets and encourage you to do the same. We think you will enjoy this location and hope to see a number of you there.

The certification tests at the Go Fish Education Center location in Perry have not been well attended the two times we have conducted training there. We welcome your comments how we can make this site work better for your purposes. We currently plan to use this location one more time to see if the number of participants increase before making a decision to discontinue training at this location. You can e-mail comments to jeff.babb@dnr.state.ga.us.

As always we look forward to seeing you at one of our training events.