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Science and Technology
The Northeast States face an unprecedented number of regulatory actions requiring compliance measures in the next two years. National Ambient Air Quality Standards for 8-hour average ozone concentrations and fine particulate smaller than 2.5 microns (PM2.5) will require States to submit State Implementation Plans or SIPs in the same timeframe that they must submit plans to address rural visibility improvement under the Regional Haze program and comply with requirements of the proposed Clean Air Interstate Rule (CAIR). These activities will require a tremendous amount of analysis, modeling and interpretation to provide a technical foundation in support of any control strategies for compliance.
The goal of NESCAUM's Science and Technology Team is to assist the states in meeting these numerous Federal mandates, as well as state and regional initiatives, with scientific and policy support based on state-of-the-art monitoring, multiple types of modeling, technical analysis and expert interpretation. NESCAUM is positioned to provide this service through the development of a comprehensive integrated analytical framework which combines energy/technology models, economic models, chemical transport models, and health benefits assessment tools. A critically important feature of this regional framework is that each of the models represents the Northeast U.S. allowing state or regionally specific characterization of technology penetration, economic effects, environmental and public health impacts.
Major initiatives of the Science and Technology Team in these and other areas include:
- Monitoring and Data Analysis
- NESCAUM provides a forum for state monitoring agencies, EPA and
academic researchers discuss issues and pursue advanced techniques
related to both routine monitoring networks and special studies.
- Regional Haze
- NESCAUM is a partner in the Mid-Atlantic/Northeast Visibility Union (MANE-VU) Regional Planning Organization and plays a major role assisting the 12 Northeast States and two tribes with compliance efforts under the 1999 U.S. EPA Regional Haze Rule. This federal regulation aims to improve visibility at 156 national parks and wilderness areas across the country.
- Regional Air Quality Modeling
- A core component of assembling the analytical framework discussed above involves developing expertise in processing emissions inventory data and simulating ambient air quality concentrations, atmospheric deposition, and visibility impacts using a variety of chemical transport models.