EPA Lowers National Particulate Matter Standard, World Doesn’t End

In what will probably be one of the most important environmental health decisions of the Obama Administration, the EPA is proposing to reduce the national ambient air standard for what are called "fine particles" of particulate matter, or soot, a pervasive form of air pollution that is linked to an increasing number of ailments ranging from respiratory illnesses, to heart attacks, to Autism, and brain damage.

Particulate Matter 2.5, or tiny bits of soot that are 2.5 microns or less in diameter (a typical human hair is 50 microns) comes from the combustion process – gas-powered cars, diesel trucks, cement plants, utility plants, or boilers or furnaces of any kind.

Sand dust, at 90 microns in size, is much, much larger, so we're not talking about "EPA regulating dust." PM is an industrial pollutant. And study after study has shown that it kills and injures people even at levels that up until Friday were considered legal and "safe."

PM is so insidious because not only is it a toxin in its own right, it also acts as a tiny suitcase for all the by-products of whatever combustion made it. Coal or cement plant soot might contain Mercury or dioxins. Car soot could have Benzene residues. And these hitchhiking pollutants are carried deep inside the lung by the soot, where they stay, doing damage for years. 

In a Boston Globe piece running thursday night, Dr. Albert Rizzo, chairman of the board of the American Lung Association, was quoted as saying that, "The science is clear, and overwhelming evidence shows that particle pollution at levels currently labeled as officially `safe' causes heart attacks, strokes and asthma attacks. 

The new rule would set the maximum allowable standard for soot at range of 12 to 13 micrograms per cubic meter of air. That's the upper level of what the EPA's own panel of scientists recommended (11-13) without breaking the law by disregarding the panel's range as the Bush EPA did in 2006 when it decided to retain the 1997 standard. That annual standard was 15 micrograms per cubic meter. That doesn't sound like much of a reduction (17%), but it's the difference between a standard that embraces the newest science versus a 15-year old one that was not considered protective of human health. It could also mean the difference between metropolitan areas like DFW being given the all clear or classified as "non-attainment" for PM pollution, the same way it's in non-attainment for ozone, or smog pollution.

That would mean the region would have to put together a plan to reduce PM pollution, and of course that could mean opportunities to press for more modern controls on the Midlothian cement plants, east Texas coal plants, and other large PM polluters. One of the first steps will have to be putting more PM monitors in the DFW region – there are only eight now and three or four of those would be considered "background" sites, that is they monitor what's blowing into DFW, but not what residents are breathing.

Since monitoring began in 2000, annual highs in DFW have ranged mostly in the 20 and 30 microgram range, with forays into the 40s and 50's mid-decade. You can use this TCEQ website to track the four highest PM readings in DFW and the rest of the state for each of the last 12 years and this one to track daily readings – although both suffer from an obsolete color-coded alert system that underestimates health damage at lower levels of exposure.

In March, the Dallas Morning News compared DFW's mostly "moderate" levels of PM pollution to the most recent studies and concluded that local populations were at increased risk of heart attacks and strokes. It's not clear yet how EPA will enforce the standard or the timeline it will use but you can be sure it'll be generous since the Administration was forced to release this new standard by court order in an election year. That's because PM pollution is as widespread as ozone pollution and the measures necessary to reduce it could mean a long march toward modernizing many industries. t’s going to be a big step forward,” said Frank O’Donnell, head of the DC-based Clean Air Watch in the Washington Post article the broke the story. “This could help frame the national effort to clean this up for at least a decade.” 

Think about how much effort has been directed at reducing smog in DFW over the last 20 years – HOV lanes, vapor recovery systems at the gas pump (put not necessarily at the gas well) and every paint shop, pollution controls on the Midlothian cement kilns, coal plants and other large industries.

It's probably going to take the same kind of all-inclusive slog to achieve compliance with this new standard, so the Obama Administration isn't gong to rush things. Despite opponents claims that these kinds of standards cost jobs, the opposite is actually true. Capital investment goes up because businesses are modernizing and putting on new control and implementing more efficient processes. Local jobs are created when those are installed. Waste is reduced. Operating costs often decrease. Despite being forced into the 20th Century by federal regs and citizen action, the cement industry in Midlothian has reduced emissions while also increasing manufacturing capacity. The same thing has happened in other industries.

Apparently the EPA is counting on the fact that previous rules aimed at other pollutants and problems have steadily been reducing PM pollution as a beneficial side effect, so the ramping up won't be as dramatic as it might have been. The proposed new standard will get published in the Federal Register and then finalized by next December 14th, so that no matter who wins in November, these rules seem to be on track. For a great primer on PM pollution in general and the history of today's decision, go check out Frank O'Donnel's Clean Air Watch website.  Read More