Status of Air Quality Standards

for Criteria Pollutants

EPA Region 2
Air Programs Branch
Bob Kelly, Regional Air Modeler
 Questions
• How does EPA sets air quality standards?

• What are the “criteria pollutants” for air?

• What is the status of revisions to the air

quality standards?
 Overview of NAAQS Reviews
• The Clean Air Act calls for national
ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) for
pollutants that “may reasonably be
anticipated to endanger public health and
welfare… from numerous or diverse
mobile or stationary sources”
 Overview of NAAQS Reviews
• "Primary" standards protect public health
with an adequate margin of safety;
• "Secondary" standards protect public
welfare and the environment (crops,
vegetation, wildlife, buildings & national
monuments, visibility)
 Overview of NAAQS Reviews
• EPA has set NAAQS for six common air
pollutants:
ground-level ozone, particulate matter,
carbon monoxide, lead, nitrogen dioxide,
and sulfur dioxide
 Overview of NAAQS Reviews
• The Act requires EPA to review the
scientific criteria and these standards at
least once every five years, with advice
from the Clean Air Scientific Advisory
Committee (CASAC)
 Different Considerations Used in
Setting and Achieving NAAQS
• Setting the • Achieving the
Standards Standards

• Health Effects • Costs

• Environmental • Time to attain the
Effects standards

Administrator sets the standard using scientific criteria (hence the “criteria
document”), including an adequate margin of safety, protecting against
hazards that science has not come to conclusion about or not yet identified.
Review Process for NAAQS
 Air Quality Standards have
several parts:

• Indicator
• Averaging time period
• Concentration of the standard
• How many times can it be exceeded?
National Ambient Air Quality Standards
Pollutant Standard(s)
Carbon Monoxide 9 ppm (10 mg/m3) 8-hour1
35 ppm (40 mg/m3)1-hour1

Lead 1.5 µg/m3 Quarterly Average

Nitrogen Dioxide 0.053 ppm (100 µg/m3) Annual (Arithmetic Mean)

Particulate Matter (PM10) 50 µg/m3Annual2 (Arithmetic Mean)

150 ug/m324-hour1 

Particulate Matter (PM2.5) 15.0 µg/m3Annual3 ( Arithmetic Mean)

65 ug/m324-hour4 

Ozone 0.08 ppm 8-hour5

0.12 ppm1-hour6

Sulfur Oxides 0.03 ppm Annual (Arithmetic Mean)

0.14 ppm24-hour1
3-hour10.5 ppm (1300 ug/m3) (Secondary Standard)

All are Health-based “Primary” Standards, except as noted.

Footnotes to Table of Standards
1 Not to be exceeded more than once per year.
2 To attain this standard, the expected annual arithmetic mean PM10 concentration
at each monitor within an area must not exceed 50 ug/m3.
3 To attain this standard, the 3-year average of the annual arithmetic mean PM2.5
concentrations from single or multiple community-oriented monitors must not
exceed 15.0 ug/m3.
4 To attain this standard, the 3-year average of the 98th percentile of 24-hour
concentrations at each population-oriented monitor within an area must not exceed
65 ug/m3.
5 To attain this standard, the 3-year average of the fourth-highest daily maximum
8-hour average ozone concentrations measured at each monitor within an area
over each year must not exceed 0.08 ppm.
6 (a) The standard is attained when the expected number of days per calendar
year with maximum hourly average concentrations above 0.12 ppm is <= 1, as
determined by appendix H.
  (b) The 1-hour NAAQS will no longer apply to an area one year after the effective
date of the designation of that area for the 8-hour ozone NAAQS. The effective
designation date for most areas is June 15, 2004. (40 CFR 50.9; see Federal
Register of April 30, 2004 (69 FR 23996).)
 Particulate Matter
• Larger particles (> PM10) deposit
in the upper respiratory tract
• Smaller, inhalable particles (≤
PM10) penetrate into the lungs
• PM10-2.5 are thoracic coarse PM
• PM2.5 go deeper than PM10-2.5

• Smallest particles (ultrafines,

PM0.1) may enter bloodstream
• Deposited particles may
accumulate, react, be cleared or
absorbed
 Particulate Matter
• First set in 1971 as Total Suspended Particulates –
annual and 24-hr std
• Revised in 1987 as PM 10
• Revised in 1997 as PM 10 and PM 2.5
• 1987 PM 10 standard still in use – new PM 10 standard
stayed by Supreme Court Ruling

• Latest: Final Criteria Document October 2004

• 2nd draft of EPA staff paper at CASAC

• Next Step: Clean Air Science Advisory Council reviews

draft staff paper April 2005

• Propose standards, if needed, December 2005

• Final Rule by September 27, 2006
Draft Staff Paper Recommendations for PM
• Provisional staff recommendations, not EPA
policy
• PM 2.5
– Annual 15ug/m3 and 24-hr 35 to 25
– Annual 14 to 12 and 24-hr 40 to 35
• PM 10-2.5
- 24-hour equivalent to present PM10
standard = 65 to 85ug/m3
- Support standard as low as 30 to 35
- Annual standard may be supported
- Secondary PM 2.5 of 30 to 20ug/m3 over 4 to 8
hours for visibility.
 Ozone
• First set in 1971 - 1-hour standard
• Revised in 1979
• Present Standard: 8-hour average
standard set 1997
• 1- hour standard expires June 2005
• Status of Review: 1st Draft Criteria
Document 2005
• Comment period closes May 2, 2005
• Criteria document final February 2006
Lead
First set in 1978
Most recent Criteria Document completed in 1986, supplemented in 1990
EPA started review in 2004
Projected to have final Criteria Document by February 2007

Sulfur Dioxide
Set in 1971
Affirmed in 1996
States to review monitored 5 minute concentrations above concern
level of 0.6 ppm and act at endangerment level of 2.0 ppm
Nitrogen Dioxide
Set in 1971
Reviewed in 1996
EPA declined to set short-term standard

Carbon Monoxide
First set in 1971
Standard retained 1994
Most recent Criteria Document completed in 2000

Non-methane hydrocarbons
Not a health standard, set as target to meet ozone health standard
Revoked in 1980s.
Public Awareness of Air Quality
• NJDEP stations mostly automated
• NJ has provided pollution data and
forecasts via phone message, TV and now
the Internet
• EPA/State collaboration: near-real-time
pollution data for PM and ozone via
AIRNOW at: epa.gov/airnow/