Tidewater Air Monitoring Evaluation (TAME)

The Virginia Department of Environmental Quality (VA DEQ) has never done regulatory air monitoring for particulate matter in Southeast Newport News or Lambert's Point, Norfolk, citing "resource and funding constraints." According to the VA DEQ, the agency proposed the Tidewater Air Monitoring Evaluation (TAME) in response to long-standing community concerns about coal dust pollution and calls for dust mitigation. TAME was funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2020 for $526,603. After multiple years of delays, data collection and analysis are yet to start with no timeline publicly available.

Goals

TAME research goals are:

• PM_2.5 and PM₁₀: Measure PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ mass concentrations as relevant for regulatory compliance with the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS). If concentrations exceed the NAAQS, this would lead to continued regulatory air monitoring and other NAAQS compliance requirements.
• Heavy metals in PM₁₀: Measure the metals content of PM₁₀. Coal dust is associated with large concentrations of heavy metals. Breathing PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ that contain high levels of these metals will have different, and likely more severe, health impacts than exposure to PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ that do not have heavy metals and are from other sources.
• Health risk assessment: In partnership with the Virginia Department of Health (VDH), the VA DEQ will conduct a health risk assessment. According to the VA DEQ, this assessment will answer: What are the health concerns of exposure to coal dust? Is there an exposure? Is there a health impact? What are the appropriate actions? The health risk assessment requires regulatory PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ measurements spanning a minimum of 18 months in neighborhoods in the vicinity of the coal terminals.

Broadly, the VA DEQ aims to determine whether there is a need for ongoing regulatory air monitoring, inform future VA DEQ Strategic Plan objectives around improving air quality and engage with “communities designated as underserved.”

Research Methods

The VA DEQ will quantify atmospheric PM₁₀ mass concentrations using their existing inventory of high-volume samplers, collecting 24-hour integrated filter samples every sixth day. These filter samples will then be analyzed off-line in the agency’s laboratory to determine PM₁₀ heavy metal content, with data likely publicly available in the subsequent months. This technique is a Federal Reference Method, meaning these PM₁₀ data can be used to evaluate NAAQS compliance.

The VA DEQ will purchase two Teledyne T640X to measure PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ concentrations in real-time, producing data that are temporally continuous and more frequent (as fast as once per ten seconds).

Initially, the VA DEQ proposed to install five PM₁₀ samplers and one Teledyne T640X in both Southeast Newport News and Lambert’s Point. However, the most recent public communication from VA DEQ indicated a downscaling in the scope of their monitoring plans.

Community Engagement

VA DEQ: Recommended Monitoring Sites for the East End Community

The VA DEQ is required to "meaningfully involve" Southeast Community and Lambert's Point residents in TAME by the 2020 Virginia Environmental Justice Act. The VA DEQ has done this in two ways. First, the agency has held multiple community outreach workshops in the project's early stages. Initially, these meetings were more interactive, with TAME representatives responding to audience questions and soliciting feedback. There is also evidence that engagement was largely perfunctory. For example, during the April 2022 TAME community meeting, attendees were prompted to identify where PM_2.5 and PM₁₀ air monitoring should focus in Southeast Newport News. While participants emphasized the need for monitoring very near the terminals, the VA DEQ developed a plan that was more regional in focus, with most monitors sited away from the terminals. In the July 2022 community workshop recording, TAME project lead Chuck Turner noted April meeting attendees’ preferences for monitoring "heavily concentrated in south and western portion of the community," but said, "we did wind up going out in other parts of the community to look for additional sites that may not have been proposed in our original April meeting." More recent meetings have been less interactive, with the limited information largely flowing from TAME representatives to residents and other attendees.

In their second major community engagement activity, the VA DEQ has a community air monitoring initiative, installing low-cost sensors manufactured by PurpleAir to community residences and other buildings, with volunteers bearing associated electricity and internet costs. PurpleAir sensors are a brand of low-cost nephelometer, sensors that directly detect smaller particles, especially PM₁, and then from that measurement, estimate larger particles like PM₁₀. This works best when PM₁ and PM₁₀ have the same sources. This likely does not work for coal dust, which is emitted by physical processes that produce large particles and not small particles. The VA DEQ has and continues to distribute these sensors to residents with dust-related concerns; however, the devices do not measure PM₁₀ and generate air quality data on issues expressly other than coal dust. TAME representatives have presented the PurpleAir data in community meetings without accurately explaining their limitations, focusing on how the sensors are not approved for regulatory air monitoring when the most relevant issue is that they do not measure PM₁₀.

Documents

TAME Documents

• VA DEQ, Tidewater Air Monitoring and Evaluation (TAME) Project Update – 12/22, December 2022
• VA DEQ, Budget Milestones CSATAMG 2023 Final 10302023 KP, October 30, 2023
• VA DEQ, Community Scale Air Toxics Monitoring FFY21-23 – New Grant Request (REVISED)
• U.S. EPA, List of Designated Reference and Equivalent Methods

TAME Community Workshops

• TAME Study Workshop, April 2022 Video | Slides | Posters
• TAME Lambert's Point Workshop Recording, July 2022
• TAME East End Workshop Recording, July 2022
• VA DEQ, Community Meeting Recording, October 2022
• VDH, Community Meeting Recording, October 2022
• Southeast Community Meeting Recording, May 2023
• Lambert's Point Community Meeting Recording, May 2023
• Virtual Community Update Meeting Recording, October 2023
• Virtual Community Update Meeting Recording, May 2024
• Virtual Community Update Meeting Recording, November 2024

News Articles

• Hafner, Coal Dust Has Long Plagued Norfolk, Newport News. With New $500K Grant, Virginia Plans to Study What’s in the Air, The Virginian Pilot, September 30, 2020
• Domecq, Residents Near Trainyard Discuss Efforts to Study and Solve Coal Dust Problems, The Appalachian Voice, January 13, 2021
• Janney, Study Aims to Test Effects of Coal Dust, but Residents are Skeptical Change Will Come, The Virginian Pilot, November 3, 2023