Experts gather to ‘clear air’ on air quality

Martin Rodarte drives an expensive set of wheels. In fact, it would set you back nearly $200,000 to buy one of your own. The only issue: you have to keep it under 5 miles per hour.

Rodarte drives a vacuum street sweeper for the city of Maricopa, which is one of many ways the city is attempting to improve air quality. Rodarte joined air-quality experts and concerned citizens at an Air Quality Open House last week at Saddleback Elementary School.

The city organized the forum to “clear the air” and educate the public concerning air-quality concerns. “There’s been so much misinformation out there,” said Brent Billingsley, the city’s director of developmental services.

Issues of air quality in Pinal County are not new. The Environmental Protection Agency, which tracks air quality across the country, has eight monitoring stations in the county. Pinal County has the dubious honor of having five of the top eight meters for poorest air quality. The Cowtown meter, located in Maricopa, is the most active in the United States with nearly 222 days a year in violation. For comparison, the next closest meter has 49 days per year.

The culprit in this issue is the particulate matter in the air…tiny particles made up of dust and dirt from unpaved roads, vacant lots, construction sites and cattle lots. By EPA definition, the particle mix in most U.S. cities is made up of fine particles (less than 2.5 micrometers in diameter or PM-2.5) generated by combustion sources, with smaller amounts of coarse dust (between 2.5 and 10 micrometers in diameter or PM-10), all of which are smaller than the width of a human hair.

These particulates can cause health issues and breathing problems. They can also be unhealthy financially to states, counties and cities that must come up with plans to bring their air-quality into compliance.

Pinal County Air Quality Director Donald Gabrielson spoke to the group about the unique challenges in the area and “events,” such high-wind days, which can trigger the meters into violation.

The meters measure the average concentration levels of the particles during a 24-hour period. Meters are allowed to exceed the maximum concentration level three times in three years, but the fourth time leads to further investigation by the EPA.

When an area has numerous violations, the EPA determines that it is violating the health-based standards, explained Colleen McKaughan, associate director of EPA’s air division for Region 9. “We think this area (Pinal County) is violating, based on the air-quality data.”

The next step is a formal letter to the governor, which begins the designation process. That letter formally designating Pinal County in violation should go to Arizona Governor Jan Brewer soon, McKaughan said. The state can then respond to the EPA with its own recommendations, which the EPA can then agree with or modify. “This process can take up to eight months.”

“When we designate the area as non-attainment, and this is the likely outcome, the state and Pinal County must come up with a state-implication plan,” McKaughan said. The county would then have 18 months to draft a state-implication plan for achieving attainment by 2013.

Maricopa is doing its part, said Billingsley. The city hired an air-quality consultant this summer to look into the surrounding air quality in Maricopa. Billingsley said the city paves more than two miles of dirt road each year. “No one in the state, that I’m aware of, is doing more than that,” he said.

For Rodarte, it’s about making Maricopa a better place to live. “I do this to keep the city beautiful.”

Photo by Jim Williams