Tidewater Air Monitoring Evaluation (TAME)
Overview
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, claiming they have "resource and funding constraints."[1] 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.[1] TAME was funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 2020 for $526,603.[2] After multiple years of delays, data collection and analysis (at the time of this page's writing in March 2026) are yet to start with no timeline publicly available.
Goals
TAME research goals are:
- PM2.5 and PM10: Measure PM2.5 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 PM2.5 and PM10 that contain high levels of these metals will have different, and likely more severe, health impacts than exposure to PM2.5 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 PM2.5 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.”[3]
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,[4] meaning these PM10 data can be used to evaluate NAAQS compliance.
The VA DEQ will purchase two Teledyne T640X to measure PM2.5 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 recent communication from VA DEQ indicated a downscaling in the scope of their monitoring plans.[5]
Community Engagement
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Image: VA DEQ's recommended air monitoring sites for Southeast Newport News.[3]
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 has been largely perfunctory. For example, during the April 2022 TAME community meeting, attendees were prompted to identify where PM2.5 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.[6] 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.
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Image: VA DEQ's recommended air monitoring sites for Southeast Newport News.[3]
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.[7] This works best when PM1 and PM10 have the same sources.
This 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.
Resources and Materials: See for Yourself and Dig Deeper
TAME Documents
Tidewater Air Monitoring and Evaluation (TAME) Project Update, VA DEQ, December 2022
Budget Milestones CSATAMG, VA DEQ, October 30, 2023
VA DEQ, Community Scale Air Toxics Monitoring FFY21–23 – New Grant Request (Revised), Undated
List of Designated Reference and Equivalent Methods, U.S. EPA, Undated
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
Community Meeting Recording, VA DEQ October 2022
Community Meeting Recording, VDH, October 2022
Southeast Community Meeting Recording, May 2023
Lambert's Point Community Meeting Recording, Repair Lab Staff Notes May 2023
Southeast/East End Community Meeting Repair Lab Staff Notes, May 18, 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, 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
Repair Lab Interviews that Mention TAME
Donquitta Clements, Interview Audio | Transcript, June 28, 2023
Renee Hoyos, Interview Audio | Transcript, May 4, 2023
Carl Poole, Interview Audio | Transcript, July 1, 2023.
Yugonda Sample-Jones, Interview Audio | Transcript, February 27, 2024
Lawrence Turner, Interview Audio | Transcript, July 7, 2023
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Sources
- ↑ 1.0 1.1 Tidewater Air Monitoring Evaluation Project, VA DEQ, Undated.
- ↑ Community Scale Air Toxics Monitoring FFY21-23 – New grant request (Revised), VA DEQ, Undated.
- ↑ 3.0 3.1 3.2 Tidewater Air Monitoring and Evaluation (TAME) Project Update – 12/22, VA DEQ, December 2022.
- ↑ List of Designated Reference and Equivalent Method, U.S. EPA, Undated.
- ↑ Community Update Meeting, November 2024, VA DEQ, November 2024.
- ↑ East End Workshop, VA DEQ, July 2022.
- ↑ Rueda et al., Size-Resolved Field Performance of Low-Cost Sensors for Particulate Matter Air Pollution, Environmental Science & Technology Letters, 10, 3, 247–253, 2023.