Fine Particle and Related Monitoring Data and Plans in the NEG/ECP Region

Memo From: Rich Poirot , To: Dick Valentinetti, VT DEC, 11/6/98

Dick, You had requested some information on:

  1. Fine Particle and related (ozone and PM-10) monitoring in New England/Eastern Canada, and
  2. Ideas for an Integrated New England/Eastern Canada Fine Particle Monitoring Network.

1. Current Fine Particle monitoring activities and related data sets

Several merged US/Canadian data sets have been recently prepared and posted (in several electronic formats, including ASCII, Access and Voyager) by Rudy Husar's CAPITA group at Washington University. (Voyager format - quite useful- requires the Voyager software, available for fee by clicking here). The recently prepared data sets include:

Integrated North American Daily PM-2.5 Mass and (where available) Chemical Speciation at: http://capita.wustl.edu/CAPITA/CapitaReports/PMFineAn/NAMPM_IntegratedData/NAMPM_integrated_data.html

Integrated North American Daily Maximum Ozone (1986-96) available at: http://capita.wustl.edu/NEARDAT/Data/data.html#.BretSchichtel and

In the early 1990s, the NESCAUM states and several of the Atlantic Provinces began exchanging their daily maximum ozone data (in near-real time) through a simple electronic Bulletin Board. With support from EPA, the NESCAUM ozone exchange has evolved into a more sophisticated Ozone mapping system, available at: http://www.epa.gov/region01/oms/ Conceivably, this mapping system could be extended to include data from the Eastern Provinces.

Average 1997 PM-10 concentrations at New England sites that met data completeness criteria (80% for 1 in 6 day sampling) durring 1997 are shown below. While there have been ocasional, very localized exceedances of PM-10 standards (50 ug/m3 annual average, 150 ug/m3 24-hour), I don't believe violations have been recorded in the past few years.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jeff Brook from Environment Canada has recently provided the following map of average 1993 PM-2.5 concentrations from urban (red) and rural (blue) sites in the Eastern US and Canada. The underlying data are from the Canadian NAPS network of dichotomous samplers, and the IMPROVE and NESCAUM networks in the US.

 

Jeff cautions that the data from the different netwoks have not been corrected to a standard volume. Although he also notes that they have found excellent agreement without corrections in several recent comparisons between the IMPROVE and NAPS samplers.

2. Suggestions for an Integrated New England/Eastern Canada Fine Particle Monitoring Network

An efficient Regional PM-2.5 Network might include a combination of:

The speciation measurements would provide needed information on the composition and sources of fine particles in the region during episodes and over the long-term, and will be especially useful for tracking progress (or lack of) from regional and national control strategies. The continuous measurements would allow detailed exploration of the temporal passage of episodes through the region, are ideal for comparison with other continuous data (ozone, S02, met, etc.), and will also be (eventually) amenable to real-time reporting and public communication of episodic concentrations throughout the region.

An example of the advantages of having both speciation and continuous measurements (and of combining data across the border) is provided in a recent analysis of August, 1995 forest fire impacts in New England and Eastern Canada.

This combination of speciation and continuous samplers would take good advantage of monitoring plans currently underway in both countries. Among the areas where coordination from the NEG/ECP fine particle workgroup could be helpful are:

 

For Comments or Additional Information, contact:

Rich Poirot, VT DEC (802) 241-3840

richpo@dec.anr.state.vt.us