Dust levels rise above federal standard
Monday winds to blame, but conditions expected to calm through Friday
The Yuma area’s air quality took a bit of a hit earlier this week when particulate pollution rose above the federal standard with Monday’s strong winds, but conditions are expected to stay calm for the rest of the week, according to state and national weather experts.
The Arizona Department of Environmental Quality reported Tuesday that PM10, or dust, levels went just above the federal standard on Monday, making air quality at that time “unhealthy for sensitive groups,” as far as the government is concerned.
But the ADEQ has not issued any warnings for today, as the concentration of dust is expected to stay in the “good” range through Friday.
Travis Wilson, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service in Phoenix, said Monday’s winds peaked at 39 mph, but has been trending downward since then, and should remain calm until a possible uptick on Satur-
day.
“Right now the forecast is for winds of 15 to 20 mph, especially Saturday morning, but that is a little far out, he said, “And that’s just associated with a system that’s passing to our north, and once that moves on by, winds are actually going to calm back down again on Sunday.”
Today is forecast to be the week’s warmest day at 93 degrees, and temps should hover just above 90 for the remainder of the week, he added: “So really, around normal for this time of year, so that’s not bad.”
Sam Nuanez, an ADEQ spokesman, agreed Monday’s pollution was the product of local and regional dust getting stirred up by the weather, and said ash or other types of pollution from the Southern California wildfires aren’t believed to be reaching Yuma.
“There’s been no direct impact on Yuma by the fires, but we will be monitoring it daily,” he said.
Most of western Yuma County has been in a PM10 nonattainment area for years, subjecting cities, the county and businesses to certain regulations in order to keep dust levels down.
Agriculture is affected to some extent, but is exempt from many rules due to the near-impossibility of not creating dust with many activities, said Paul Ward, executive director of the Yuma Metropolitan Planning Organization.
Monday’s elevated dust levels probably won’t create additional problems for the county with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, he said. “Essentially, it doesn’t particularly penalize the area, to my understanding, and more importantly, it doesn’t torpedo our efforts to comply with the PM10 standard,” he said.
But the standard is in flux, with legislation affecting PM10, ozone and other pollutants passed by the House in July but inactive since reaching the Senate.
The Yuma County Board of Supervisors endorsed a letter sent to the area’s representatives in Congress and the state Legislature in June by the Yuma County Farm Bureau.
Among other things, it stated a “Natural Events Action Plan” to meet the requirements to upgrade the nonattainment area to a “maintenance” area was submitted to the EPA eight years ago and still hasn’t been approved.
Art Allen, a member of the county Farm Bureau’s board of directors, said Tuesday that Yuma’s desert location and the inevitability of wind kicking up dust makes compliance impossible, unless the EPA were to exempt wind-driven events.
“Until they change that I don’t know what to do. There is no way we can be in compliance when we have events like yesterday,” he said. “And it wasn’t the whole day, it was just a little while. And then the winds calmed down and we went back into compliance. But there’s nothing we can do about what happens with the weather.”