As temperatures topped 100 degrees in Northeast Ohio this week, it brought to mind the perennial Ozone Action Days and... just what the heck do they mean? Also, with the deadline for Northeast Ohio’s air pollution control plan looming, we asked NOACA Senior Environmental Planner Pamela Davis about actions the regional transportation planning agency will take.

What does it mean when Northeast Ohio is having an Ozone Action Day?

We’ve been doing this for 12 years. As part of the Clean Air Act, NOACA’s responsible for (tracking) emissions from mobile sources. We look at ozone, particulates…it’s a health standard.

Looking at the live feed on the NOACA web site on Wednesday when we hit 100 degrees, it looked like we were in the danger zone on the 1-hour screen but the 8-hour was moderate most of the day. What's the deal — is the 8-hour more or less sensitive to health risk?

Our monitors are real time. It’s an 8-hour average. During an eight hour period, if we go over 85 parts per billion, then we’re over the (air quality) standard. We’re using mapping not for the standard but for a health advisory. If you have asthma and it’s continuing to grow in ozone (from green to yellow or orange) it does alert you by showing you the peaks, the color gradation. The 8-hour is more protective of the public.

We’ve had a scorching three days of sun and temperatures in the ‘90s,  but I didn’t see an Ozone Action Day alert — why not?

We take monitor readings the day before and then we look at the forecast for the next three or four days. We look at the temperature forecast, what’s the cloud cover the next day, the direction of wind and wind speed, and generally when temperatures are over 85 degrees with clear skies and no wind or slight wind, we’re probably going to have an Ozone Action Day (when three monitors in the area have readings that exceed 85 parts per million). This week, it turns out we had high temperatures, but the sporadic clouds we had helped with shading, and then higher than expected wind speeds helped.

How many Ozone Action Days have we had so far this year? Isn’t there a limit to how many we can have before we’re in non-attainment or violation of the EPA air quality standards?

I believe we declared five days and exceeded six times so far. The region’s moderate non-attainment status is based on monitor readings — they look at the fourth highest average in the area. They used 2002 numbers, and Geauga County’s monitoring station at Notre Dame was the fourth highest value at 99 ppb. That’s a far cry from 85 ppb (the limit allowed by EPA). The region has until 2010 to apply reduction options with the state.

So, NOACA is right now finalizing the region’s plan to control air pollution as part of the EPA requirement to address our non-attainment status. Based on the recommendations of the Air Quality Public Advisory Task Force and your staff, what will the board be looking at when it comes to a vote?

The task force provided a slate of recommendations and took it to the air quality subcommittee who reviewed them for the board so that some options could be formed into policy. They’ll be voted on at the next NOACA board of governors meeting on August 11. You can see resolutions of what the board is being asked to support here and also see (earlier) reports on our web site.

They asked for a change in transportation investment policy to focus on recommendations including [cleaner] summer fuel. They asked the board to enforce the Reasonably Available Control Technology (RACT) rules and if they’re written for Northeast Ohio, that they get written for the entire state.

It looks like they also asked the board to support truck stop electric plug-ins so truckers can cut off engines overnight, cleaner buses, transit incentives for high air pollution days, diesel retrofits for city and airport diesel trucks, even a carbon-trading program for businesses. What else? And what part does the public play in all of this?

We’re talking about increasing public outreach for (car) trip reductions and anti-idling policies. Saving fuel saves money — the connections have to be made. We’re looking at carsharing, CityWheels, as one option. We’d like to do diesel engine retrofits; so we have to explain to fleet managers about products and where is the potential funding. We’re going to start a fleet manager’s page that will show you states that have anti-idling policies. The State of Ohio should take the lead and have a state law or regulation for anti-idling.

We think biodiesel has great potential to reduce NOx. We need to work on off-road vehicles like bulldozers, trains, ships, and construction equipment. Caterpiller just retrofit all of their backhoes with diesel filter catches and the ground support equipment at Hopkins — they replaced snow plows with plug-in electric connections [anti-idling equipment that keeps engines warm]. These private initiatives deserve a lot more attention and praise.

Everybody has to do their fair share, everybody has to reduce.