Air Sciences Inc.

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The Regional Haze Rule, Part II

Characterizing Wildfire

In our previous post on the Regional Haze Rule (RHR), we briefly explored the history of the rule and how recent changes in the rules and accompanying guidance have implications for how wildland fires are handled during the planning process. Here, we will look more closely at the implications of wildland fire on regional haze planning, and how Air Sciences is assisting the Western Regional Air Partnership (WRAP). WRAP is a voluntary partnership of states, tribes, federal land managers, local air agencies and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) whose purpose is to understand current and evolving regional air quality issues in the Western United States.

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The Regional Haze Rule, Part I  

Then and Now

Promulgated in 1999 in the wake of the bipartisan Grand Canyon Visibility Transport Commission’s recommendations, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Regional Haze Rule established visual (instead of health-based) criteria for air quality to address declining visibility. The areas subject to this rule span the larger Class I national parks and wilderness areas (156 in total) overseen by the National Park Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, U.S. Forest Service, and several Native American Tribes. 

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Playa Dust Playing a Role in Ozone Formation

North American playas are large dust emitters. Dotting the deserts of the Southwestern United States, these dry lake beds are highly saline from the concentration of salts following evaporation. These salt deposits can become entrained in the air when winds scour the dried lakebed. The resulting saline dust has a high fraction of halogenated compounds, primarily those containing chlorine. When the chlorine-containing aerosols (the dust that remains suspended in the atmosphere) mix with nitrogen oxides (primarily dinitrogen pentoxide), a gas called nitryl chloride (ClNO2) is produced. Sunlight interacts with  ClNO2, breaking it apart into chlorine radicals that participate in the formation of tropospheric ozone.

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Air Quality at the United States Embassy in Cairo

In 2015 the United States (US) Department of State launched an Air Quality Monitoring Program with the primary goals of protecting US personnel and their families, obtaining sound data to reduce exposure, evaluating the Department’s enterprise risk, advancing scientific understanding, and highlighting US technology and leadership. This effort has contributed air quality reporting at many embassies and consulates around the world. Volunteer on-site Air Quality Fellows provide the scientific expertise behind this program. Air Sciences’ Dr. Katheryn Kolesar recently returned from such a trip to Cairo, Egypt. 

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Navigating Cleaner Air Oregon (CAO)

To track emissions at the national level, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) requires Oregon (and other states) to conduct statewide inventories from all sources of air pollution. These data collected from across the country are used for making new rules and modeling air pollution.

A few years in the making, Cleaner Air Oregon (CAO) addresses this need and is already affecting many companies in the state. As of November 2018, all permitted facilities should have already submitted emissions inventories for their sources to the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ).

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