The Environment and You:Find Air Quality Information for HAPs

Helena VonVille, MLSLibrary DirectoryUniversity of Texas School of Public

Health at Houston

Harris County Public Library

Why is this separate from the other air quality handout?

Other data sources include only the 6 pollutants that are considered when coming up with the air quality index

Hazardous air pollutants such as benzene, lead, vinyl chloride, etc. do not appear in the other reports

View the 4 maximum levels for selected pollutant(s) for the selected year (1994-2004)

AirData (EPA)

At the main screen, scroll down below the map. Click Select County and click Go.

Selecting Your County or Counties

Choose the county or counties you want. To select more than one county, hold down the <Alt> key on the keyboard as you click on the county names.

Select Report to View

There are several report options at this screen. Probably the most helpful is the Monitor Values report.

Setting Up the ReportSelect the pollutants from the list. How do you know what to select?

Using TOXMAP or the TRI Explorer, we saw what pollutants have been released.

The EPA list of hazardous air pollutants can serve as a guide, as can the list of carcinogens from Right to Know which is demonstrated in the Health Effects presentation.

In this example, Benzene, Lead, and Toluene were selected.

This report provides a yearly report of the pollutants that were identified at the various monitors throughout Harris, Fort Bend, Brazoria, and Galveston Counties.

Final Report

Final Report (cont’d)

To sort any of the columns, just click on one of the triangles above the column.

What is 1st Max, 2nd Max, etc.?

The Max Values refer to the highest points measured for that pollutant for that year selected. The Max Value is an average of the pollutant over 24 hours. To get definitions on any of the terms, click on the column name.

View All HAPs from One Monitor

In this example, the Benzene reading is particularly high for the Channelview monitor. To see other pollutants this site found, click on See All HAPs.

Channelview HAPs Monitor Report

Each pollutant that was detected in Channelview for the year 2004 will show up in this report.

Channelview HAPs Report (cont’d)

To see which pollutant had the highest concentration during the year, click on the downward triangle at the top of the row. It will change color to indicate that the rows is sorted by that column.Use the resources you found in the Health Effects presentation to learn more about these pollutants

Go to Workshop Agenda