THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, August 2, 1995 TAG: 9508020447
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY JAMES SCHULTZ, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 54 lines
Each of Hampton Roads' three air pollution monitoring stations is roughly the size of a clothes closet, fitted with relatively simple equipment. But their findings could complicate life for local residents.
The stations, in Hampton, Suffolk and Holland, continuously sip the region's air through Teflon tubes and sense ground-level ozone, or smog, by ``seeing'' it.
The air passes through a filter to remove particles, then goes into a double-ended aluminum pipe fitted at one end with an ultraviolet light. Ozone molecules absorb ultraviolet light; a sensor at the other end of the tube detects any remaining ultraviolet light.
That reading is translated into an ozone level, recorded on a cylindrical paper roll, and made available in digital form to the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality.
For a station to be in compliance with standards, measurements must not exceed 0.12 parts per million. So far during the heat wave, readings have ranged between 10 percent and 90 percent of that threshold.
Aside from smog's ugly, ground-obscuring haze, high levels of the pollutant can lead to a host of health problems. Increased risk of severe asthma, heart attacks and general respiratory illness have all been linked to high ozone concentrations.
``Stratospheric ozone is ozone we need to protect us (from solar radiation),'' said Dan Salkovitz, an environmental engineer with the state. ``Low-level ozone is something we do not want.''
A significant increase in ozone concentrations could bump the area from a ``marginal'' to ``moderate'' pollution designation. Any status change would lead to more frequent car inspections, emission-control retrofits for older cars and increased costs to industry.
All the more reason to make sure Tidewater's ozone-collection gear is good to go.
``These machines are checked frequently,'' said Richard Craft, air compliance and monitoring manager with the environmental quality department. ``They're very reliable and stable. Now and then we put a bell or whistle on, but it's pretty much the same machine we've used for 15 years now.'' ILLUSTRATION: Color photo by TAMARA VONINSKI, Staff
Brady Collins, an environmental specialist, sits near a machine that
local air pollution monitoring stations use to ``see'' smog and
determine ozone levels.
KEYWORDS: AIR POLLUTION by CNB