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Friday
November 20, 2009 Since 1922 |
Scientists spend month on air quality study
By Ken Fountain
Baytown Sun Published August 22, 2006 GALVESTON — More than 200 scientists using an array of instruments are embarking on a month-long study of the air quality in the Houston-Galveston region.
Researchers led reporters and other visitors on a tour Monday of the Ronald H. Brown, a National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration vessel that will be part of the joint study, called the Texas Air Quality Study and the Gulf of Mexico Atmospheric Composition and Climate Study.
The air quality study, a more comprehensive one than a similar study done in 2000, is designed to measure the levels of precursors to ozone formation as well as particulate matter in the region. The Houston-Galveston region is in non-attainment for federal ozone standards.
The study, which began Monday and will conclude Sept. 30, will provide better information to area policy makers as they make decisions on how to bring the region under compliance under the State Implementation Plan, said David Allen, a chemical engineering professor at the University of Texas at Austin who is one of the study’s lead researchers.
The region is required to meet the standards by 2010.
Allen said the 2000 study was the “best example” of recent air quality studies that helped to “reshape the air quality plan for the Houston area.”
Mary Glackin, assistant administrator for NOAA’s office of program planning and integration, said the study will bring an unprecedented amount of resources to a regional air quality study.
In addition to the array of sensors temporarily housed aboard the Ronald H. Brown, the study will involve five aircraft that will take measurements as they make passes across the region.
The results of the study will provide “some critical information to policy makers” as they decide where to focus pollution-control resources, helping to reduce the economic impact of those controls to the region’s economy and saving job, Glackin said.
She said the study will also help shed light on the link between air quality and global warming.
“We understand that pollution has a role in global warming,” but the extent of that relationship is not fully understood, Glackin said. But it is known that pollution has an affect on a regional level on such things as people’s health, crop yields and drought.
Rebecca Rentz, Houston area air quality director for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, said the study will provide “real-time data” that will allow researchers to pinpoint with more accuracy than ever before the sources of pollutants.
Rentz said data acquired from the 2000 study resulted in the placement of pollution control equipment across the region’s industrial sector that has resulted in emissions reductions.
With the new, improved study, she said, “We’ll be able to improve air quality faster for Texas.”
For more information on the study, visit the Web site http://esrl.noaa.gov/csd/2006.
Baytown Sun Published August 22, 2006 GALVESTON — More than 200 scientists using an array of instruments are embarking on a month-long study of the air quality in the Houston-Galveston region.
Researchers led reporters and other visitors on a tour Monday of the Ronald H. Brown, a National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration vessel that will be part of the joint study, called the Texas Air Quality Study and the Gulf of Mexico Atmospheric Composition and Climate Study.
The air quality study, a more comprehensive one than a similar study done in 2000, is designed to measure the levels of precursors to ozone formation as well as particulate matter in the region. The Houston-Galveston region is in non-attainment for federal ozone standards.
The study, which began Monday and will conclude Sept. 30, will provide better information to area policy makers as they make decisions on how to bring the region under compliance under the State Implementation Plan, said David Allen, a chemical engineering professor at the University of Texas at Austin who is one of the study’s lead researchers.
The region is required to meet the standards by 2010.
Allen said the 2000 study was the “best example” of recent air quality studies that helped to “reshape the air quality plan for the Houston area.”
Mary Glackin, assistant administrator for NOAA’s office of program planning and integration, said the study will bring an unprecedented amount of resources to a regional air quality study.
In addition to the array of sensors temporarily housed aboard the Ronald H. Brown, the study will involve five aircraft that will take measurements as they make passes across the region.
The results of the study will provide “some critical information to policy makers” as they decide where to focus pollution-control resources, helping to reduce the economic impact of those controls to the region’s economy and saving job, Glackin said.
She said the study will also help shed light on the link between air quality and global warming.
“We understand that pollution has a role in global warming,” but the extent of that relationship is not fully understood, Glackin said. But it is known that pollution has an affect on a regional level on such things as people’s health, crop yields and drought.
Rebecca Rentz, Houston area air quality director for the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality, said the study will provide “real-time data” that will allow researchers to pinpoint with more accuracy than ever before the sources of pollutants.
Rentz said data acquired from the 2000 study resulted in the placement of pollution control equipment across the region’s industrial sector that has resulted in emissions reductions.
With the new, improved study, she said, “We’ll be able to improve air quality faster for Texas.”
For more information on the study, visit the Web site http://esrl.noaa.gov/csd/2006.