Atmospheric haze: Its sources and effects on visibility in rural areas of the continental United States

Spatial and temporal trends in visibility are examined at a national level. It is shown that visibility is impaired in all antional parks approximately 90% of the time, and that eastern visibilities are about 10 times lower than western visibilities. Measurement of atmospheric particulates that affect visibility shows that sulfates associated with man-made emissions of sulfur dioxide are the single largest contributor to visibility reduction, except in the northwestern United States, where organic aerosols contribute significantly. In the East, coal fired power plants along the Ohio River Vallery contribute the most SO₂, while oil refining activities and other industrial sources in southern California, copper smelters in southern Arizona, and industrial activity along the Gulf Coast of Mexico contribute most of the SO₂, and thus sulfates, in the West.Contribution from Fourth World Wilderness Congress-Acid Rain Symposium, Denver (Estes Park), Colorado, September 11–18, 1987.The assumptions, findings, conclusions, judgments and views presented herein are those of the authors and should not be interpreted as necessarily representing official National Park Service policies.     

Organochlorine contaminants in seabird eggs from the Pacific coast of Canada, 1971–1986

Eggs were collected from seven seabird species at colonies on the British Columbia coast from 1983 to 1986 and analyzed for organochlorine contaminants. Total PCB levels (wet weight) were highest in double-crested cormorants (Phalacrocorax auritus) from the Fraser estuary (2.91 mg kg^-1) and the Strait of Georgia (3.79 mg kg^-1). Highest DDE levels were in fork-tailed storm-petrels (Oceanodroma furcata) from the Queen Charlotte Islands (1.68 mg kg^-1). Organochlorine levels were generally lower in eggs from the mid 1980s than in those collected in the early 1970s. Organochlorine levels in Pacific alcids and hydrobatids foraging in offshore locations were compared to those in the same or ecologically similar species from the Canadian Atlantic coast. DDT- and HCH-related compounds were higher in Pacific populations while levels of dieldrin, oxychlordane, and HCB were generally lower. With the exception of -HCH, levels of all measured organochlorines were lower in cormorants breeding in the Fraser River estuary than in cormorants from the St. Lawrence River estuary on the Atlantic coast.     

Relevance of radiation compensation litigation to compensation for toxic exposures

Several recent court decisions add to the growing body of law concerning the responsibility of Government in radiation matters and the quantum of proof needed to show causation between radiation exposures and certain types of cancer and leukemia. The courts have also been addressing a wide range of compensation claims for exposures to toxic chemicals with demonstration of causation being a particularly difficult task. Meanwhile, the Congress has been attempting to legislate a far reaching administrative and judicial framework for compensating toxic victims, including an easing of burden-of-proof requirements for demonstrating causation and a broadening of the basis for admissibility of scientific evidence. Drawing parallels between radiation and toxic exposure problems can be both instructive and misleading. Some of the technical issues are quite similar, including the importance of person-specific exposure estimates and of epidemiological studies. However, the uncertainties associated with toxic exposures are usually far greater, and the scientific data base for relating exposures and effects is much more uncertain.     

Second derivative spectroscopy for the determination of volatilized ammonia from urea-amended soil

A second derivative spectrometer custom fitted with a 1 m stainless steel White cell and maintained at 105°C is used to make real-time measurements of volatilized NH₃ from urea-amended soil. Comparison of the technique to impinger data shows a 5–16% discrepancy between the two techniques; however, other experiments presented suggests that this is not real. Sulfur dioxide and nitrous oxide interferences are discussed, though they were not found to be present in this study. Instrument response time is shown to be fast if 67% of the total response is achieved in less than 5 min. Fast response is achieved for ammonia if wall-adsorption effects are minimal and if ammonia mass flow is maintained at 0.2 μg min^-1.     

Excrement from Heron colonies for environmental assessment of toxic elements

Excrement cast from Great Blue Heron nests was collected during the nesting period of 1978 from four colonies in Washington and Idaho. Cheesecloth strips placed on the ground beneath the nests served as excrement collecting devices. Chemical analysis for lead, mercury and cadmium were performed on dried samples. Lead was the most abundant trace metal found in heron debris. The Idaho colony at Lake Chatcolet had an average concentration of 46 ppm in the beneath-nest samples and 6 ppm in control samples. A heron colony near Tacoma, Washington had beneath-nest samples averaging 28 ppm and control samples averaging 20 ppm. Two colonies located in the interior region of Washington had substantially lower concentrations of lead. The difference observed between colonies was attributed to their associations with a polluted watershed (Chatcolet colony) an interstate highway (Tacoma colony) and an unpopulated largely agricultural area (inland Washington).     

Problems of correlation of global and local monitoring of air pollution

1. The Air Polluttion Monitoring System has got a significant development of late, which is in direct relation with a considerable extention and improvement of the observation network in cities and industrial areas, with creation of a new network for assessing regional and global background of the atmosphere pollution, as well as with the wide involvement of meteorologists to monitoring organization.
2. While developing a new global monitoring system, it is necessary to take into account its relationship with the local monitoring within the region of air pollution sources, i.e. at the \lsimpact\rs level. The need in such an account is dictated first of all by the physics of pollutant spreading that states: changes in air pollution over large territories must be in a certain agreement with greater changes in the vicinity of emission sources. Methods applied in the global and local monitoring have also a number of common peculiarities. White organizing regional network for observations of the background pollution of the atmosphere twin stations (one of the pair of stations located outside the city boundaries in a small community, and the other, in the nearest city with the population of 200–400 thousand inhabitants) were established in the U.S.S.R. and in a number of socialist countries in Europe.
3. Implementation of the twin-station principles in the U.S.S.R. has contributed to data interpretation and representativity assessment as well as to correction of the station location. Observation results from the Soviet background stations and those abroad have been compared by now according to a number of indices.
4. The correlation of monitoring systems of various scales tells positively both on mutual improvement and completion of observational methods. The methods of obtaining integral characteristics of air pollution were used for the global monitoring, in particular spectral actinometric observations and chemical analysis of the precipitation composition. Now they find still wider employment. Thus methods of spectral actinometric measurements and data processing were used to estimate the degree of aerosol pollution of a number of industrial centres. The theory of solar radiation spreading and aerosol contents determination in urban atmosphere has also been developed. It is a generalization of an earlier developed theory, used to estimate global atmosphere pollution basing on actinometric data. The organization of precipitation collection and analysis on a network of stations around Leningrad and in Donbass area enables us to compare the admixture content in precipitations falling in industrial and agricultural areas.
5. A considerable increase of possibilities to measure microconcentrations of sulphur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and of a number of other pollutants is connected with the use of solid solvents for sampling. Their use will allow to avoid establishment of special laboratories at background stations and only send samples by post for their analysis in centralized laboratories.

They will also allow to considerably increase precision and accuracy of measurements. The international comparisons of methods of air pollution measurements on the background level allow to judge about the effiency of these methods.     

A new device for measuring fluctuations in plant stem diameter: Implications for monitoring plant responses

An electrical device capable of continuously measuring micronsized changes in stem diameter of woody and herbaceous plants is described. Fumigation of sunflowers with automotive exhaust was used to test the ability of the device to detect short-term plant responses.     

Integration of modeling,monitoring and laboratory observation to determine reasons for air quality violations

An attempt was made to explain ambient air quality violations in the vicinity of industrial plants. Micrometeorology, diffusion calculaations, ambient readings, and plant engineering data are all taken into consideration to ascertain whether the plant is or is not the principal offender.Scrutiny of hi-vol filters using scanning electron microscopy for particle size analysis and particle chemical make-up as an assessment technique is also described.Case histories using the above analytical techniques are discussed.Presented at the 16th National Conference on Energy and the Environment, May 23, 1979