Commonwealth of Puerto Rico Puerto Rico Environmental Quality Board

Puerto Rico Area Designation for the Revised Lead National Ambient Air Quality Standard

October 14, 20092



### T ABLE OF 

### C ONTENTS

Table of Contents..................................

................................................... .................. 2

Acronyms and Abbreviations .........................

................................................... ......... 3

Executive Summary..................................

................................................... .............. 4

AREA DESIGNATION ...................................

................................................... ......... 5

1) San Juan Area ...................................

................................................... .......... 5

Procedure and results from San Juan Area........... ............................................. 6

2) Arecibo Designations ............................

................................................... ....... 7

3) Other Areas Designations ........................

................................................... .... 7

Conclusion .........................................

................................................... ..................... 7

Appendix I: Design Value calculations 3 month Rolli ng Average............................... 83



### A CRONYMS AND 

### A BBREVIATIONS

AIRS: Aerometric Information Retrieval System

CAA: Clean Air Act

CFR: Code Federal Register

CPR: Commonwealth of Puerto Rico

EPA: Environmental Protection Agency

EQB: Environmental Quality Board

FRM: Federal Reference Method

NAAQS: National Air Ambient Quality Standards

PB: Lead

PR: Puerto Rico

PREQB: Puerto Rico Environmental Quality Board

TSP: Total Suspended Particulate

μ g/m 3: unit, micrograms per cubic meter4



### E XECUTIVE 

### S UMMARY

Section 109(d)(1) of the Clean Air Act (CAA) requir es the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to complete through review of the Nati onal Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) on 5 year intervals using the cri teria published on section 108 of the CAA. In accordance with such requirements o n October 15, 2009, EPA revised the Lead NAAQS. The new primary lead stand ard was lowered from the 1.5 micrograms per cubic meter ( μ g/m 3 ) level set in 1978, to a level of 0.15 μ g/m 3 based on a quarterly averaging time. The reason for the change was to provide increased protection against lead-related welfare effects.

Section 107(d) (1) (A) of the Clean Air Act (CAA) e stablish the process for area designations following the establishment of a new r evised NAAQS. Under this section, States are required to submit recommendati ons to EPA not later than one year after the promulgation of a new or revised sta ndard. The areas must be classify as attainment, nonattainment, or unclassifiable with respect to the new or

revised standard. The recommendations must be subm itted to EPA by October 15,

2009.

The Environmental Quality Board (EQB) is responsibl e for developing and implementing emission control programs for attainin g and maintaining the NAAQS. As required by section 107(d), the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico (CPR) is submitting the designations and recommendations for the new revised lead standard for EPA approval. In this document EQB is providin g the list of designations
recommendations for all areas in CPR base on availa ble information on existing monitoring data and will be waiting for designation of the newly lead monitoring

station are available.5



### AREA DESIGNATION

1) San Juan Area

The designation of the San Juan area is base on ava ilable monitoring data from monitoring station located at the Baldorioty Avenue , which is identified with the AIRS Number 72-127-0003. The lead and its compounds are measured as elemental lead in total suspended particulate (Pb-TSP), sampled an d analyzed by a Federal Reference Method (FRM) in 40 Code of Federal Regula tions Part 50 Appendix G – High Volume TSP.

The site was designed to account for geographic siz e, population density, complexity of terrain, meteorology, and to measured air qualit y to compare with the primary NAAQS for lead and to record the highest concentrat ion in the area. The San Juan municipality has the Luis Muñoz Marin International Airport and EQB already has a lead monitor in the area. The EQB evaluated the qua lity assured, certified air quality data for the most recent three consecutive year per iod that includes the years 2005 to 2008, and determined that the data obtained do n ot exceed the revised lead
NAAQS.

Figure 1 – Actual Lead Monitoring Network- San Juan6



### Procedure and results from San Juan Area

The Pb NAAQS is met at a monitoring site when the i dentified design value is valid and less than or equal to 0.15 micrograms per cubic meter ( μ g/m3). In accordance with 40 CFR Part 50 final version of Appendix R pro vides that the 3-month averages which include either of the two months prior to a t hree-calendar-year period will be associated with that 3-year period, and that the 3- month averages which include either of the two months after the three calendar y ear period will not be associated

with it. The latter two months would be within the next 3-year period and their data would affect compliance during that next 3-year per iod.

The Pb sampling for San Juan has a schedule to take a sample every sixth day. The procedure approach to demonstrate attainment and ca lculate the design value is as

follow:

1. Is average all scheduled, make-up, and extra sam ples taken on a given scheduled sample, typically, there will be up to fi ve such 6-day averages in a month; there can be fewer 6-day averages if one or more of the 6-day periods yielded no valid data. 2. Is average these 6-day averages together to calc ulate the monthly average. This approach has the effect of giving equal weight to each 6-day period during a month regardless of how many samples were actually obtained during the 6 days, which mitigates the potential fo r the monthly average to be

distorted. 3. 3. Calculating the 3-month average would be to aver age the three monthly averages giving equal weight to each month, as desc ribed above in the standard 2-step approach to calculating the 3-month mean. 4. Also, Puerto Rico applies the 75 percent complet eness requirement at the 3- month level by averaging the three monthly complete ness values to get the 3- month completeness value. This reduces the likeliho od of an incompleteness situation for an entire 3-year evaluation period du e to as few as two missed samples in a single month. The data substitution wa s applied in some individual month that has incomplete data relative to the 75 percent requirement. The data are still substituted within the individual month (i.e., if a day of concentration data is missing from January i n one of the three years, the missing concentration is substituted with the h ighest available measured Pb concentration from other days in the three Janua rys). Finally the comparison of the substituted average concentration to the level of the NAAQS is done for the 3-month average concentration not the monthly average concentration since a 3-month averaging tim e has been selected. 5. Comparison the identified design value with the 0.15 μ g/m 3 to determine if
meets the NAAQS.7

According with the results, San Juan meets the prim ary Pb standards. The highest

valid 3-month site-level mean over the most recent 38-month period concentration 1

is 0.049 μ g/m 3 that is less than 0.15 μ g/m 3 . The average percent of days within the required monitoring with valid ambient monitoring d ata is greater than 75 % data completeness. Therefore the data completeness requi rement is also met.

2) Arecibo Designations

According with the Pb emissions inventory the Areci bo area was identified with the potential to emit 1 ton of lead a year. EQB recomm end establishing a newly monitoring station as part of the lead air quality monitoring network 2009. On January 1, 2010 should be installed and operational . The EQB intend to make designation when the necessary from the newly stati on is available.

3) Other Areas Designations

The Pb emissions inventory for Puerto Rico demonstr ate that the rest areas in Puerto Rico do not have industries with the potenti al to emit 1 ton of lead a year or have more than 500,000 people. According with that the rest of Puerto Rico should be designated as unclassified/attainment.



### C ONCLUSION

Based on the technical documents and to the most re cent data the following are the designations and recommendations for the new revise d lead NAAQS in Puerto Rico:

- attainment for the San Juan area base on existing m onitoring data;

- unclassified for the Arecibo area until sufficient air quality data from the newly lead monitoring station are available to take final action.

- unclassified/attainment for the rest of the areas i n Puerto Rico because sufficient monitoring data is not available to make a determination and the

emissions sources located at this areas are below one (1) ton/yr.

1 See Table1 - 3-month site8



### A PPENDIX 

### I: D ESIGN 

### V ALUE CALCULATIONS 

### 3 MONTH 

### R OLLING 

### A VERAGE Oct 2005 to Sept. 2008

AIRS Number 72-127-0003

Baldorioty Ave. at San Juan, Puerto Rico

Month Period Design Value by

3-month

Oct/ 2005 0.006

Nov/ 2005 0.008

Dec/ 2005 0.007

Jan / 2006 0.006

Feb / 2006 0.004

Mar / 2006 0.000 Apr / 2006 0.000 May / 2006 0.000

Jun / 2006 0.000

Jul / 2006 0.000 Aug / 2006 0.000 Sep / 2006 0.000

Oct / 2006 0.000

Nov/ 2006 0.003

Dec/ 2006 0.006

Jan / 2007 0.010

Feb / 2007 0.007

Mar / 2007 0.004 Apr / 2007 0.000 May / 2007 0.000

Jun / 2007 0.000

Jul / 2007 0.000 Aug / 2007 0.005 Sep / 2007 0.009

Oct / 2007 0.011

Nov/ 2007 0.011

Dec/ 2007 0.017

Jan / 2008 0.033

Feb / 2008 0.044

Mar / 2008 0.049 Apr / 2008 0.036 May / 2008 0.022

Jun / 2008 0.011

Jul / 2008 0.010 Aug / 2008 0.010 Sep / 2008 0.010 Max Rolling Ave. 0.0499