County concerned about air-quality rules
Stricter regulations could impact local economy
Yuma County officials are concerned about the threat stricter air-quality regulations related to the ozone could pose to the local economy, but much of the county has been included in a “nonattainment area” for PM10 dust particles for decades, with no end in sight.
The federal Clean Air Act monitors PM10, or particulate matter smaller than 10 microns, because they are small enough to be inhaled by people, drawing the pollutant into their lungs where they can trigger coughing and wheezing or aggravate asthma, other lung problems or heart disease.
Southwestern Yuma County was labeled a “nonattainment area” for PM10 the year after the Clean Air Act was amended and expanded in 1990. The specific area covers the city of Yuma, the Foothills and Somerton but stops just short of San Luis. The northern boundary runs along the Colorado River until just south of Martinez Lake, and the eastern boundary runs just east of Telegraph Pass.
PM10 matter can come from auto emissions, woodburning fires or other sources, but windblown dust is the primary culprit in Yuma, whether it’s originating from local agricultural fields or from Mexico or California. And it takes just two windy days with high levels of dust per year to be above the federal standard.
Art Allen, a local farmer and a member of the Yuma County Farm Bureau’s board of directors, said he remembers when air pollution was much worse in cities across the country, and said regulations do serve a purpose. “And it’s so much better than it used to be, so I don’t want to go back to no regulation at all. But I would like to go back to something that’s attainable for someplace like we are,” he said.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s nationwide maximum standard for PM10 pollution is 150 micrograms per cubic meter, which cannot be exceeded more than once a year over an average of three years.
The county’s one official air quality monitoring station is in Yuma, on Arizona Avenue just north of 24th Street.
According to air quality monitoring data on the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality’s website for 2017 through Dec. 17, Yuma has exceeded the standard on four days this year. The worst day was Feb. 17, when at its peak PM10 levels were at 391 micrograms per cubic foot. The others were May 6 at 302, Oct. 9 at 160 and Oct. 20 at 196.
For the rest of the year, Yuma has had 283 days where PM10 readings were in the “good” category of under 50 microns and 53 days in the “moderate” range of 51 to 149 microns.
The effects of being in a PM10 nonattainment area can be far-reaching, and in Yuma County primarily affects agriculture, construction sites, and transportation and road maintenance.
Arizona requires agricultural operations larger than 10 acres in PM10 nonattainment areas to follow “best management practices” (BMPs) to reduce dust pollution from farming areas, which are specific to each of the three counties affected.
Operators are required to keep records of which practices are used and make them available to the state with two days’ notice. If they fail to comply, they must pay for an air quality permit, for which there is no fee if they follow the practices.
The Farm Bureau has been active in efforts to educate the Yuma area’s large agricultural sector about the “best management practices,” with its representatives holding five out of seven seats on the Yuma Agricultural BMP Air Quality group when the guidelines were first issued in 2009.
Growers are required to follow at least one practice in each of three categories, and the practices include conservation tillage, chemical or conservation irrigation, aggregate cover or reduced speeds on access roads, precision farming and planting based on soil moisture.
Allen was one of the authors of those guidelines.
“In agriculture we do a lot of things, we water our roads, we do a lot of moisture cultivating and everything else, all of the best management practices we’ve put forward have helped. They’re not going to cure everything when the good Lord decides it’s time to blow. Especially when you’re surrounded by millions and millions of acres of desert, which gets 3 to 5 inches of rain a year,” he said.
The public and private sectors have for the most part been cooperating for the last 26 years to keep dust to a minimum, he said, but it can be frustrating, “when the regulations become so restrictive, and there’s no recourse, no way you can get out of it, even though we’re trying everything we can. You see what the county’s done. They’ve done a wonderful job sweeping streets, trying everything they can, making sure construction uses lots of water so they won’t have a lot of dust.”
The county and cities must factor dust-reduction plans into their planning efforts, and the Yuma Metropolitan Planning Organization must prove that projects in their long-term plans will at least not make PM10 pollution worse, if not improve it, Executive Director Paul Ward said.
He said the area’s efforts to reduce pollution could be more effective with additional funding, but most federal assistance funding goes to the state’s more established urban areas. Almost all of Arizona’s Congestion Mitigation Air Quality funding, about $26 million in fiscal 201516, goes toward Maricopa County projects, and funding for the whole state is determined by Phoenixarea data.
“Although we are a nonattainment area, we essentially get zero funding to address our air quality issues,” he said.
Even this funding wouldn’t likely be enough to keep Yuma under the PM10 standard when major storm fronts blow particulate matter in from Mexico or California, as well as locally.
There has been a proposal to get Yuma County some relief from the regulations on the table for 11 years now: the Yuma PM10 Maintenance Plan, submitted to the EPA through the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality.
If accepted, western Yuma County would continue efforts to control dust pollution and follow an action plan when natural events such as storms converge to put readings at the county’s air quality monitor above the federal standard. In return, its status would be changed to a “maintenance” PM10 area, subject to fewer regulations.
Maintenance plans are permitted under the Clean Air Act, but the EPA has never responded to the Yuma County proposal, Ward said.
According to email correspondence sent to him this fall, the state did send another submittal letter for the 2006 plan as part of a 2011 document, he said. “But realistically, as far as the EPA is concerned, the last thing we sent off to them was on Aug. 16, 2006. And it’s still pending approval.”
He added this isn’t necessarily a bad indication. “If there was a problem we would have heard from EPA. And we haven’t heard from EPA, and we haven’t been requested to provide additional information, at least that I’m aware of,” he said.