Review of Air Quality Management System

Objectives

After completing this module the student will demonstrate an understanding of:

• The shortcomings of the traditional regulatory approach to air pollution control
• The components of the new approach to air quality management

During this entire course we have discussed the Air Quality Management used in the United States. Air quality management has its foundations in the Clean Air Act and its amendments through history. The discussed management activities include standard setting, ambient air monitoring, development of permitting programs and development and implementation of control technologies. All the components of air quality management listed above must be integrated for the system to work. Standards are based on monitoring and measurement data, while implementation of the regulatory standards relies on information gathering and enforcement activities. Achievement of ambient air quality goals relies on the success of the regulatory system and the measurement of the progress through additional monitoring and measurement.

Traditionally, the management of air quality has included all these components. But it has not been perfect. Although there have been some environmental success stories, there are several reasons why the regulatory approach has fallen short. First, regulatory programs have a difficult time keeping up with both population and economic growth. For example, even though regulations controlling emissions from automobiles have resulted in more fuel efficient and less polluting vehicles, there are more vehicles on the road today. This offsets the gains achieved by reducing pollution from individual cars. A second problem with the existing regulatory approach is that regulations generally focus on one environmental medium. The price of success in air pollution control programs is often increased solid waste or water pollution. In many cases, pollution is not being reduced but merely transferred from the air to the land and water.

Third, there are many new environmental problems that do not lend themselves to traditional source-by-source regulation. Examples of this are indoor air pollution, global warming, and ozone depletion. New strategies are needed to attack these problems.

The air pollution challenges facing the nation over the coming decades are complex; they are likely to require mitigation strategies. These strategies require understanding the dispersion and interaction of multiple pollutants over multistate or even international airsheds, and developing the air pollution control strategies that span multistate airsheds, and understanding and mitigating the impacts on human health and ecosystem conditions that arise from simultaneous exposure to multiple pollutants.