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On July 21, Maryland’s Department of the Environment (MDE) hosted a conference entitled Air Quality: New Challenges, to educate attendees about the new Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) 8-hour ozone standard and their new PM2.5 - fine particulate matter standard.
Many business and government organizations, eager to learn about Maryland’s air quality and how the new standards may affect them. Members of the regulated community such as Domino Sugar and Constellation Energy, and local government agencies such as the Montgomery County Department of Environmental Protection and the Baltimore City Health Department, sent representatives to gather information from MDE’s air quality experts in its Air and Radiation Management Administration (ARMA).
“While Maryland still has significant air quality issues,” said Tad Aburn, program manager for MDE’s Air Quality Planning and Monitoring Program within ARMA, “Maryland can boast a number of successes in our effort to control air pollution in the state. Maryland has implemented one of the country’s most aggressive sets of air pollution control regulations, which includes controlling emissions from power plants as well as the consumer products we use every day. And one of the state’s best successes is that ozone pollution is at some of the lowest levels ever monitored.”
Ozone Pollution Levels Low - Transport Too High!
So with these successes, why is Maryland still experiencing episodes of poor air quality? Conference attendees learned that mobile and area sources are key contributors to our local pollution problem. Mobile sources are automobiles, heavy-duty diesel trucks, and buses. Non-road mobile sources include trains, marine vessels and construction equipment. Area sources include consumer products such as paints and solvents and small commercial operations such as drycleaners and automobile body shops.
Another major conference topic was pollution transport. A major challenge for Maryland is the problem of pollution transport from sources outside of the state. Pollution controls in Maryland and the northeast states are very stringent. Controls in states to the west and south, however, are not as strict, and pollution emitted in those states floats into the northeast. On Maryland’s worst ozone pollution days, as much as, 70 percent of the pollution comes from other states.
“Maryland is a meteorologically challenged state,” said Brian Hug, Air Quality Planner, Air and Radiation Management Administration, who presented a session about the science of transport. “And Maryland is also a victim of its geography.”
“During the summer, Maryland sees its worst air pollution when a Bermuda High sets up over the Carolinas,” explained Hug. “This causes the air aloft to circulate in a clockwise direction, bringing in power plant emissions from the Ohio River Valley.”
Pollution Comes in Three Varieties
There are three types of pollution transport that affect Maryland: long range pollution comes from hundreds of miles away, short-range transport where pollution from Northern Virginia and the District of Columbia reaches Maryland, and local pollution from here travels to Pennsylvania. A third type of transport is called low-level nighttime jets, where currents of fast moving air about 2,000 feet above the earth’s surface bring pollution from as far south as the Carolinas.
Addressing new federal standards and Maryland’s State Implementation Plan (SIP) process was the last phase of the conference. The former one-hour standard for ozone was revoked in June, and replaced by a more stringent 8-hr ozone standard. Maryland is currently working on its 8hr ozone SIP, due to EPA in June 2007. Areas designated moderate for 8hr ozone are required to be attained by 2010. That is also the same year that areas of non-attainment for fine particulate matter (PM2.5) are required to be in attainment.
“We’ve been modeling and planning for ozone since the 1970s,” Tad Aburn added. “PM (particulate matter) is a whole new ballgame. We understand ozone, but we’re still in a critical learning phase with respect to PM Fine.”
The conference planners stated that this was the first in a series of meetings to be held as MDE formulates its strategies for dealing with the revised standards.
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