PA Monitoring Overview

The monitoring of Pennsylvania’s air occurs in two ways. Any industry or establishment that puts more than a set limit of emissions into the air must have a permit issued by DEP. This permit requires the permit holder to use pollution control technology to meet established emission levels. This permit is part of the public record and may be examined by anyone who arranges to do so. The permitee must monitor itself and keep records available for inspection by regulatory agencies. Additionally, the state maintains air stations where the general surrounding air (referred to as ambient air) is continually monitored.

Ambient air monitoring is conducted by the Allegheny County Health Department and by Philadelphia Air Management Services in Pittsburgh and Philadelphia respectively, while the Pa. DEP monitors the rest of the state.

The monitoring strategy of the DEP’s Bureau of Air Quality is to place monitors in areas having high population density, high levels of contaminants or a combination of the two. These areas are referred to as "air basins" and multiple sites are monitored within each basin. These air basins consist of the following areas:

 

In addition to the 12 basins monitored by the DEP (Allegheny County monitors its own basin), the department monitors three non-basin areas where data has been collected and maintained. These areas are Altoona, Williamsport and the Shenango Valley. Thirty-nine remote stations run continuously and automatically, connected by telephone lines to a central computer system in Harrisburg which collects and posts the raw data. This data is available on the department’s web site at http://www.dep.state.pa.us, and is updated every 15 minutes. The actual monitoring sites are listed in the activity, "What’s Up Where In the Local Air!"

The goals of the ambient air monitoring program in Pa. are to judge compliance with federal and state standards; to provide real-time monitoring of air pollution episodes; to provide data for trend analysis, regulation evaluation and planning; and to provide public information daily on air quality.

A Pollution Standards Index (PSI), developed by the US EPA, is published daily for 17 areas in PA as a means of reporting air quality to the general public. The PSI formulation involves the levels of carbon monoxide, sulfur dioxide, particulate matter (PM10), ozone and nitrogen dioxide compared to their standards. Standards are set by the federal government based on the Clean Air Act and are the levels above which the pollutant should not go. Levels of each pollutant are converted to a number on a scale of 0 to 500. The number 100 corresponds to the standard for each pollutant. A PSI level in excess of 100 means that a pollutant is in the unhealthful range. A PSI level below 100 means that a pollutant’s readings is in the satisfactory range.

This information is published by some newspapers, reported by some weather forecasters and is available on DEP’s web site.

Additional air quality information is provided by such organizations as the Clean Air Council and the American Lung Association.