An evaluation of alternative formulations of the national ambient air quality standards for SO/sub 2/

Conference · Sun Jan 01 04:00:00 EST 1984 · Proc., Annu. Meet., Air Pollut. Control Assoc.; (United States)

OSTI ID:5822408

Hayes, S R; Haney, J L; Burton, C S

The Clean Air Act requires review and possible revision of the national ambient air quality standards (NAAQS) every five years. During NAAQS standard setting, many decision makers focus their attention primarily on the concentration level of the proposed standard. However, that level is only one of several degrees of freedom that can influence public protection afforded by the standard and the effectiveness of emission control programs designed to attain it. Such degrees of freedom include the formulation class (statistical or deterministic), the averaging time, the maximum allowed annual exceedance rate, and the attainment period (the length of time over which attainment is determined). In this paper, the effect that different combinations of these degrees of freedom would have on the short-term NAAQS for sulfur dioxide (SO/sub 2/) is examined. In particular, the paper evaluates and compares the design value stability (robustness) and magnitude associated with three major classes of SO/sub 2/ NAAQS formulations: the original deterministic second-high form (or frequency-of-exceedance, as it is referred to in this paper), the statistical expected-exceedance form (the current formulation of the ozone NAAQS and the probable formulation of future short-term NAAQS), and the statistical expected-nth-highest form (based on the several-year average of the nth-highest concentration in each year). In addition to different formulation classes, allowed exceedance rates of 1, 5, and 10 per year are considered.

• Research Organization: Systems Applications, Inc., San Rafael, CA
• OSTI ID: 5822408
• Report Number(s): CONF-840612-
• Conference Information: Journal Name: Proc., Annu. Meet., Air Pollut. Control Assoc.; (United States) Journal Volume: 6
• Country of Publication: United States
• Language: English

Related Subjects

29 ENERGY PLANNING, POLICY, AND ECONOMY
293000 -- Energy Planning & Policy-- Policy
Legislation
& Regulation
500200* -- Environment
Atmospheric-- Chemicals Monitoring & Transport-- (-1989)
500600 -- Environment
Atmospheric-- Regulations-- (-1989)
54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
AIR POLLUTION MONITORING
AIR QUALITY
CHALCOGENIDES
CLEAN AIR ACT
DECISION MAKING
ENVIRONMENTAL QUALITY
LAWS
MATHEMATICS
OXIDES
OXYGEN COMPOUNDS
OZONE
POLLUTION LAWS
QUANTITY RATIO
STABILITY
STANDARDS
STATISTICS
SULFUR COMPOUNDS
SULFUR DIOXIDE
SULFUR OXIDES