Arizona Department of Environmental Quality (ADEQ) officials met this week with Pinal County civic, business and community representatives in to plan ways to satisfy federal air-quality standards.
The state hired Sierra Research, a California-based consulting firm specializing in air quality and pollution control, to address the technical aspects of the plan to curb dust pollution, The Arizona Republic reports.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) says Western Pinal County has some of the worst levels of coarse dust in the nation and has ordered the county to clean up its air by the end of 2018 or face penalties.
Researchers will compile an inventory of emission sources — such as agricultural activities, transportation, industry and construction — to decide the level of impact each has on air quality..
“Disturbed land,” dirt roads, maybe housing communities that never got finished, appears to account for a number of violations so far, said Trevor Baggiore, deputy director of ADEQ’s air-quality division.
Since 2002, air-quality monitors throughout the county have shown “widespread, frequent and, in some instances, severe” violations of PM-10 standard. The monitors are located in or near populous areas, including Maricopa, Casa Grande, the San Tan Valley area, and portions of Coolidge, Florence and Eloy.
A monitor south of Maricopa in an area known as Cowtown, home to several feedlots, detected excessive levels of PM-10 for nearly half of all days in 2008.
An Arizona State University analysis linked PM-10 concentrations and asthma-incidence rates in Phoenix in 2006. Research published in the New England Journal of Medicine in January 2009 showed a reduction in exposure to particulate matter significantly increased a person’s life expectancy.
