One Air Sciences’ team member’s graduate research at Portland State University (Oregon) clocked a lot of time with a tabletop ultraviolet (UV)-visible spectrometer. This equipment measures how much a chemical substance absorbs light. You see, Matt had painstakingly prepared hundreds of passive air pollution monitoring devices to conduct high-density measurements of nitrogen dioxide (NO2) in east Portland. To “extract” the adsorbed NO2 from the devices, an aqueous solution was prepared with spectral properties that changed with the amount of NO2 present. Perfect, tedious work for a grad student, but it ultimately produced some gratifying results.
In our last post on this topic we left off asking the question, “given how much wildland fires change year to year, how do we build an emissions inventory (EI) that is representative of a multi-year period, or a future period?” This is a confounding problem not only for the Regional Haze planning process but for any air quality planning exercise that a regulatory agency engages with.
In 2011, the United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) promulgated National Emissions Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) for gold ore processing and production facilities. This rule is set forth in Volume 40 of the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR) Part 63 Subpart EEEEEEE (40 CFR 63 Subpart EEEEEEE). These gold ore processing and production facilities are required to obtain a federal permit under 40 CFR part 70 or 40 CFR part 71 (Title V operating permit), even if they are not associated with a major source.
For centuries, humans used mercury to extract gold or silver. Incredibly dangerous if inhaled directly, mercury also poses an environmental burden when it is released into the atmosphere or ends up in water. Mercury release can have natural (from volcanoes and forest fires) or man-made (anthropogenic) origins (power plants and manufacturing). One anthropogenic source linked to Air Sciences’ work is gold mining in Nevada.
Dust from wind traveling across open land areas is a common phenomenon on all continents of the world. Whether a tilled field or a geographic feature like a dry lakebed, these areas can emit dust that impacts public respiratory health. Knowing the potential for adverse health effects is difficult to quantify. Varying surface conditions, weather, and rates of emission are inherent to this challenge. Read more