Maricopa County Particulate Matter

Through a series of projects, T&B Systems has provided the Maricopa Association of Governments (MAG) with research programs to identify emission types and source areas which contribute to federal PM10 standard exceedances.  One program looked in detail at stagnant wintertime conditions in the Arizona Salt River Basin with detailed fixed site and mobile laboratory measurements to characterize the source types and source areas.  Successful completion of this program identified key fugitive source areas and emissions types that ultimately became part of an extensive rule-making effort for controls.  Subsequent programs have used optical particle sizing techniques to characterize the size distribution of particulate matter during high PM events.  The latest effort used a mobile laboratory equipped with digital cameras, particle measurements and precise GPS positioning to characterize over 1,000 miles of private unpaved roads and ingest the data into an ARC-GIS database for analysis of potential control technologies.  T&B Systems’ approach to the sampling and analysis of data provided cost-effective solutions to difficult questions.