Air quality control regions

For administrative purposes, it is desirable that the boundaries of an air quality control region be the same as those of major political jurisdictions. Therefore, when the first air quality control regions were officially designated in the United States by publication of their boundaries in the Federal Register, the boundaries given were those of the counties all or part of which were within the background concentration isopleth. 

None of the interstate air quality control regions operates as a unif 1 air pollution control agency. Their control functions are all exercised, their separate intrastate components. 

The national network of air pollution measurements is keyed to the 247 air quality control regions (aqcr s), which were classified according to the relative severity of their pollution problems. The classification is a ranking of measured ambient air concentrations or the estimated air quality in the area of maximal severity. The priorities for air quality problem severity are as follows ... 

Schuck, E. A., and R. A. Papetti. Examination of the photochemical air pollution problem in the southern California area. Appendix D. In Technical Support Document for the Metropolitan Los Angeles Intrastate Air Quality Control Region Transportation Control Plan Final Promulgation. San Francisco U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Region IX, Oct. 30, 1973. 19 pp. 

Congress attempted to correct that deficiency and other air pollution problems in a series of amendments to the 1963 act passed in 1965, 1966, 1967, and 1969. The 1965 amendments, for example, authorized the secretary of health, education and welfare to establish nationwide standards for automobile exhaust emissions. This legislation and later amendments also authorized the surgeon general to study the effects of air pollutants on human health, expanded local air quality programs, set compliance deadlines for meeting new air quality standards, established air quality control regions (AQCRs), and authorized research on low emission fuels and more fuel-efficient automobiles. 

To provide basic geographic units for the air-pollution control program, the United States was divided into 247 air quality control regions (AQCRs). By a standard rollback approach, the total quantity of pollution in a region was estimated, the quantity of pollution that could be tolerated without exceeding standards was then calculated, and the degree of reduction called for was determined. States were required by EPA to develop state implementation plans (SIPs) to achieve compliance. 

Air quality control regions, criteria, and control techniques... 

The Clean Air Act of 1967 called for the designation of air quality control regions by the Federal Government with the consent of the state and local governments. Furthermore, the Federal Government had to issue for each pollutant, air quality criteria from which standards could be established. It had to issue companion reports on control technology... 

The Clean Air Act as amended in 1970 required that all areas of the nation be designated very quickly as air quality control regions. Every part of the United States has now become part of an intrastate or interstate air quality control region. There are 237 control regions in the lower... 

AQCRs Air quality control regions BOD Biological oxygen demand... 

The CAA establishes national primary and secondary air quality standards for sulfur oxides, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, ozone, nitrogen dioxide, and lead. It also limits the emission of 189 listed hazardous waste pollutants such as vinyl chloride, arsenic, asbestos, and benzene (CAA, 1977). States are responsible for enforcement of the CAA. To assist in this effort. Air Quality Control Regions (AQCRs) were established. Allowable emission limits are determined by the AQCR or its subunit, the Air Quality Management District. These emission limits are based on whether or not the region is currently within attainment of National Air Quality Standards. 

In order to control the air pollution, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has adopted the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) as required by the Clean Air Act. The emission quota is applied to major industrial pollutants and particularly to the sulfur oxides in an attempt to maintain the standards over an air quality control region. It is a regionalized and not an interstate control. The scientists at Argonne have put together a book which tells how to put together an emission control quota in a local region. 

Necessarily then, the Clean Air Act apportions remaining emissions around the country. The Clean Air Act apportions remaining amounts of clean air by setting up the NAAQS as a constraint over additions to the air pollution baseline in areas where the NAAQS are not yet violated. It is necessarily a quota on new polluting industrial development, applied to air quality control regions. The emission quota concept simply makes explicit the air pollution quota assignment implicit in the Clean Air Act. 

I have indicated that the emission quota is applied to an air quality control region. As most of you know, the air quality control regions are divided into several categories. In the nonattainment areas the NAAQS are violated and no more growth is allowed until the NAAQS are met. In these areas, the emission quota idea does not apply unless the baseline is improved until the NAAQS are no longer violated. 

MANDELKER Mr. Herzberg is going to cover this in his talk I ll leave that to him. Let me repeat that the emission quota idea that I ve been talking about is definitely based on the air quality control region as the area of control, so it does have that problem. 

The concentration of a specific pollutant in an air quality control region, which already exceeds the air quality standard for that pollutant (called a nonattaimnent area), to be increased... 

Air quality control regions n. Geographical units of the country, as required by USA. Law, reflecting common air pollution problems, for purposes of reaching national standards. 

USEPA. (1972). Federal Air Quality Control Regions. U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Rockville, MD. 

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