Local air monitoring

Southeast Newport News Atmospheric Pollution Survey, 1956

Th City of Newport News hired Froehling and Robertson Inc., a Richmond-based chemical engineering firm, to quantify the amount of coal in airborne particles. The study was in response to a coal dust-related complaint to the Newport News City Council by the Garden-Shores Civic League. Froehling and Robertson Inc. installed ten dust collection stations in the Stuart Gardens-Christopher Shores area of Southeast Newport News. Each station consisted of two-foot square glass plates coated with a neutral paper and mounted on outdoor platforms. Every few days, technicians removed the paper coatings to analyze the settled particles in their laboratory for the presence of coal, with samples collected for 30 days.

City Manager J. C. Biggins

Motivated by complaint to the Newport News City Council by the Garden-Shores Civic League

Council reject passing an ordinance against "offenders," according to a letter from Biggins to Blanchard (President of the Garden-Shores Civic League) because it "might have a detrimental effect on the economic and industrial life of this city."

At the station located at 15th Street and Wickham Avenue, 45% of collected airborne dust was coal. Some stations were destroyed.

Outcome was fog curtain

Biggins provided draft ordinance designed to control the sources of air pollution, including from coal terminals.

Documents

• Newport News to Analyze Smoke and Soot Nuisance in Garden-Shores Sector, Daily Press, April 4, 1954
• Study of Air Pollution Set to Start Soon, Daily Press, September 21, 1956
• 10 Dust Collection Stations, Daily Press, October 4, 1956
• Council, Daily Press, November 27, 1956
• Council, Daily Press, December 4, 1956

• Annual PM₁₀ Monitoring Data Report for Norfolk Southern’s Coal Pier – Lambert's Point, Norfolk, Virginia, October 11, 2016
• Public Health Implications of PM₁₀ Concentrations Collected near Lambert’s Point Coal Terminal, July 19, 2017