Short Term Air Quality Standards for Suspended Particulate Matter in New York State

Abstract

The Clean Air Act of 1970 requires each state to submit plans for implementation, maintenance, and enforcement of national ambient air quality standards subsequent to promulgation. Such plans have been geared to meet annual averages and maximum values. Based on experience in implementing the abatement plan it was found that air quality standards for averaging times shorter than one year are needed to shorten the time required to show contravention and to provide a basis for early corrective measures to regulate specific sources. This paper reports on the need and procedures used by New York State to develop such standards for suspended particulates. Daily suspended particulate data were analyzed by the Kolmogorov-Smirnov method goodness of fit technique to determine that the form of the distribution was log normal. A method developed by Larsen for predicting short term maximum concentrations for log normally distributed data was used to determine numerical values for one, two, and three month standards. Monthly, bi-monthly, and tri-monthly suspended particulate standards of 130, 110, and 100 µg/m³, respectively are proposed for the most extensively developed areas of New York State and correspondingly lower values for other areas. The methods used in this development are generally applicable to other air contaminants.