ADEQ holding a series of air pollution meetings in Yuma

The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality will hold a series of stakeholder meetings next week to meet with Yuma residents who can address different aspects of the area’s PM-10 air pollution problems.

The sessions will be held Monday and Tuesday and are intended to form working groups to discuss and look for ways to control different sources of dust pollution in Yuma County: agriculture, construction sites, roads and windblown dust.

The two-and-a-half-hour meetings will be led by agency officials who will walk participants through priorities, current regulations and control measures, brainstorming ideas for reducing dust pollution and next steps toward resolving issues.

This is a followup to a Feb. 20 meeting held in Yuma which began the public input process for a plan to improve PM-10 particulate pollution, for which much of western Yuma County has been a “nonattainment area” for 25 years under the federal Clean Air Act.

State officials said then they are hoping to be able to move the area into “attainment” by submitting a plan to the Environmental Protection Agency incorporating existing and new measures to control dust for approval.

Once this happens, the EPA can exempt Yuma from being penalized for days when PM-10 pollution is above the federal standard due to wind-driven events beyond local authorities’ control, once evidence is submitted.

These “exceptional events” could get the Yuma area out of nonattainment, and it would no longer be subject to certain Clean Air Act regulations.

PM-10 particulate matter is defined as particles 10 microns in diameter or smaller, generally labeled as dust. When inhaled by humans it can cause short-term acute effects such as coughing and wheezing, as well as longer-term health concerns for those with lung or heart disease.

PM-10 matter includes particles 2.5 microns or smaller, but those are monitored as a separate air-quality measure, for which Yuma meets the federal standard.