Ambient Air Monitoring Strategy
for State, Local, and Tribal Air Agencies
This document presents an Ambient Air Monitoring Strategy (AAMS) for State, Local,
and Tribal (SLT) air agencies. This document updates the broader, SLT-oriented material from
the December 2005 version of the National Ambient Air Monitoring Strategy (NAAMS). The
material in this document differs from the material in the December 2005 NAAMS document in
a few substantive ways:
The discussion in this document of the history, process, and rationale for various strategic
decisions is not as detailed as that in the April 2004 or December 2005 versions of the NAAMS.
This document is narrower in scope, focusing primarily on criteria pollutant monitoring and the
other more urban-oriented monitoring programs for SLT air agencies.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) specific strategy with regard to some monitoring programs remains in a formative stage (e.g., National Ambient Air Quality
Standards review outcomes, or monitoring for ammonia). Thus, in those instances, this version
of the Strategy may focus more on potential outcomes or broad goals and objectives rather than
on specific strategic plans.
Since this document does not cover the full scope of ambient air monitoring programs in
which EPA plays a role, EPA expects to develop a larger, fully comprehensive NAAMS in the
coming year. The comprehensive NAAMS is intended address overall air quality management
in the U.S., including both monitoring and modeling objectives, covering regulatory and nonregulatory,
health-based, rural, and ecosystem-level monitoring objectives.
Note that even after finalizing this particular document and the
full-scoped NAAMS, EPA envisions that it will revise these documents as monitoring needs
evolve, and EPA adjusts its strategy to address emerging air quality topics, technological
advances, and other implementation issues.
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12/22/08 |
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