Dust Control – Soil Stabilization – Erosion Control

Posts Tagged ‘environmental protection agency’

Encouraged by efforts from the West Indies Alumina Company (Windalco) to eliminate a dust nuisance from its red mud (waste disposal) lake at Battersea in Central Manchester, residents have reportedly suspended plans to sue.

“The objective was never about money, the aim always was to get the company to do the right things,” Battersea resident Mark Cameron told the Sunday Observer last week.

Cameron was one of the leading voices protesting the dust nuisance,

“The feeling now is that they (Windalco) are now on the right track though there is a lot more that needs to be done,” he added.

Cameron had said late last month that a member of his community was preparing to file a “class action” law suit against the bauxite/alumina company as a consequence of “the clouds of toxic dust” from the dry lake invading their homes and endangering health.

But over the last two weeks the waste disposal site — which over a period of months had become a dust bowl — has been flooded with water.

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Agriculture producers seeking to reduce PM10 (dust) and volatile organic compounds can apply for assistance from the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS).

NRCS has $1.8 million in Arizona along with technical expertise available to farmers and ranchers to improve air quality.

Applications are taken on a continuous basis. Feb. 26 is the deadline to apply for the current funding.

Approved applicants will receive up to 75 percent of the project paid; up to 90 percent if the applicant is from a historically underserved group.

Seven counties are eligible in Arizona, areas identified as non-attainment areas by the Environmental Protection Agency. Farmers and ranchers in Cochise, Gila, Maricopa, Pima, Pinal, Santa Cruz, and Yuma counties are eligible.

Conservation practices included in the program include: anaerobic digesters; feedlot and dairy dust control; tillage and harvest dust control; dirt road dust control; gravel pad track out systems; and grizzly track-out device systems.

Neighbors of the tailing piles at Asarco’s Mission Mine are complaining that the wind-blown dust is hurting their health by aggravating asthma and other respiratory problems leading to coughing, clogged sinuses and wheezing.

Some want federal and state regulators to shut down the mine, at least until it’s clear that the problem of blowing tailings dust is fixed for good.

At a public meeting in Sahuarita Friday, an Asarco official apologized for the two incidents last November and December in which tailings blew into the neighboring Rancho Resort and led Pima County officials to slap the company with violation notices. But Asarco’s Tom Aldrich said company efforts to fix the problem already are working, since tailings didn’t blow off the site during 50 mile per hour winds as recently as Jan. 21.

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Mesa County and the city of Grand Junction are collaborating with state health officials to monitor and control dust that can whip up blinding storms in the spring and pose an unhealthy nuisance for residents.

County commissioners adopted an agreement Monday with the city and the state’s Air Quality Control Division that officials say should help protect the public and reduce the chances that the Grand Valley violates federal air-quality standards when it comes to dust pollution.

Local and state officials are trying to address elevated air dust levels in the valley that exceed the federal particulate matter standard known as PM10, as well as determine whether increased levels are created here or outside the area.

The federal government allows Mesa County to exceed the PM10 standard three times in a three-year period. If the standard is exceeded a fourth time, the state and local governments have to develop a plan to bring the valley’s air quality back into compliance.

Mike Brygger, county air quality specialist, said the county exceeded the PM10 standard three times in 2005 but not once since.

“We haven’t exceeded that standard in the last couple of years, but there’s always the potential to have a bad year,” he said.

Local officials aren’t just watching for elevated levels of dust. They’re also looking to see where the dust comes from.

That’s important because if air monitors register particulate sizes that violate federal standards, but those particulates came from a dust storm that blew in from outside the valley, local officials can claim the elevated levels were beyond their control. They can then petition the Environmental Protection Agency to remove the incident from a federal database and not have it count as a strike against the county.

For example, Brygger said, two of the PM10 standard violations in 2005 were the result of regional, not local, dust.

The agreement between the state, county and city reinforces dust-control measures already in place.

For the first time, it also brings in another agency to notify the public when high levels of dust are in the air.

Beginning this spring, the National Weather Service will issue blowing dust and public health advisories as necessary, advising elderly and citizens with breathing problems to stay indoors and people in general not to exercise outside.

The agreement also requires the city and county to review the effectiveness of their dust-control measures and implement any necessary modifications every two years.

The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency says air quality last year improved.

An annual report shows that air quality trends for pollutants for which air quality standards have been developed – along with some heavy metals, nitrates, sulfates, volatile organic and toxic compounds – are continuing to show downward or stable trends that are well below the established standards.

Air quality during 2008 was either good or moderate more than 96 percent of the time throughout Illinois.

There were 14 days air quality in some part of Illinois was considered "Unhealthy" for sensitive groups, this compares to 24 "Unhealthy" for sensitive groups days in 2007.

The improved numbers come even though a more stringent federal standard for measuring acceptable air quality was used for the 2008 report.

Percentage changes from 1999 through 2008 show decreases of 14 percent for particulate matter (PM10), 20 percent particulate matter (PM2.5), 15 percent for sulfur dioxide, 13 percent for nitrogen dioxide, 47 percent for carbon monoxide, 18 percent for lead and 12 percent for ozone.

Environmental protection officials in Beijing have had an easy time since the Olympics last summer.

The city recorded fewer polluted days following its smog-cleaning campaign for the Olympics, and authorities last month announced that the city’s air quality has reached the highest level in decades after meeting its annual target for "blue sky" days one month ahead of schedule, for two consecutive years.

But the fact that Beijing’s air is now clean is bad news for reporters.

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An environmental advocacy group known as Environment Virginia released a report this week that identifies Alexandria’s Mirant coal-fired power plant as the second dirtiest in Virginia. The report, titled "America’s Biggest Polluters," used carbon dioxide emissions data from 2007 to conduct an analysis of the plants and create a ranking system. The finding comes at a time when city officials are coordinating with Mirant to erect a 30-foot windscreen in an effort to control fugitive dust from the plant.

"It’s very disappointing, but I must say it’s not surprising," said Councilwoman Del Pepper. "I’m hopeful that with the $ 34 million we got to improve the plant will address some of the problems."

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Haul Road Dust Control  is a fundamental element to the efficient venture of a mining company. Not only with regards to security but as well to the employees wellbeing.  Surface mining operations use huge off-road haul trucks extensively to move material at mining properties. Historical research, using the United States Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) emissions factors for unpaved haul roads, has revealed that haul trucks produce the bulk of dust emissions from surface mining sites, accounting for approximately 78%-97% of total dust emissions. This is even greater with a low value haul road dust control  program.

Observations of dust emissions from haul trucks prove that if the dust emissions are unrestrained, they can be a safety danger by means of impairing the operator’s visibility. This increases the likelihood for haul truck accidents. Yet, the greatest long-term health risk of dust generated from hauling operations is due to breathing of the respirable dust [median diameter <4 micrometers (μm)] and thoracic dust, which is equivalent to the EPA’s definition of PM10 [particulate matter with a median diameter <10 μm]. Exposure to respirable dust has always been considered a health hazard on surface mining operations, particularly if silica dust is there.

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