Introduction
The clean air acts of the US and Canada provide air
quality managers specific motivation to protect and
enhance local and regional air quality. In the Pacific
Northwest, current concerns that derive from
legislative mandates include visibility and the health
impacts of fine particulates (PM2.5), the exposure
levels of air toxics, mitigation of regional haze,
continued occurrences of elevated ozone, and assessment
and mitigation of source impacts, as well as transport
to Class I areas. At the same time, the NW-CAPP meeting
in June 2003 formalized the idea that future decisions
related to these, and other, air quality issues be
based on sound science which implies a clear
understanding of the relationships between pollutant
sources, pollutant transport and fate in the
atmosphere, and, ultimately, pollutant concentrations
and public exposure in receptor areas.
To provide air quality managers with the sound
scientific foundation needed to address current and
future air quality issues, the Northwest International
Air Quality Environmental Science & Technology
Center (NW-AIRQUEST) has been established. NW-AIRQUEST
is a virtual science center to support air quality
management within the region. Participants include
technical staff from local, state, and provincial
agencies, university researchers, and scientists from
U.S. EPA, the Forest Service, Park Service, and
Environment Canada. In this work plan, we briefly
outline current work within NW-AIRQUEST and then
describe specific tasks to continue to build our
capabilities and understanding of urban and regional
air quality in the Pacific Northwest.
Work Plan
We have identified several areas where we will concentrate our activities; we expect these areas will continue to be focal areas this year and in the future. For each these areas, we will convene several working groups to develop specific plans and to proceed with analyses and specific tasks where appropriate.
NW-AIRQUEST Activity Areas
* sharing of data
* emissions
* monitoring
* model output
* monitoring
* analysis of current networks
* new types
* new locations
* evaluation
* inventory
* monitoring
* modeling
* support of operations
* smoke management
* air quality forecasts
* use of satellite observations
* liaison with other organizations
* THORpex
* MM5 Consortium
* WRAP
* BlueSky Consortium
* FCAMMS
* NOAA/EPA AQ Forecasting
* STAPPA/ALAPCO
* WESTAR
For these areas, the working groups will operate
through regular email and scheduled calls. Reports from
each group will be given to the entire group on a
regular basis. The goal in each case is to develop
specific goals and tasks that address the topic. For
example, the working group on monitoring will consider
our current situation in terms of monitoring networks,
monitoring goals, ways to take advantage of new
methods, and needs for re-consideration of current
network designs, among others.