YODER – Yoder residents and concerned citizens gathered on Wednesday, October 30 for a presentation of the Wyoming Department of Environmental Quality’s (DEQ) Particulate Monitoring for the town of Yoder. 

Over the last few years, residents and concerned citizens reported an increase in illnesses and other health concerns as the air quality continues to be visibly affected by the Yoder sand treatment facility, Dietzler Construction Corp. 

According to the DEQ, monitoring in the Yoder community began when the community expressed concerns regarding the PM impacts in the ambient air in the town. 

“As such, the monitoring objective for the Yoder site is to quantify PM10 and PM2.5 concentrations in ambient air,” the DEQ explained. “Additional sampling has been included to collect and speciate PM4 present in ambient air.”

Currently, Yoder has air quality monitoring systems through the DEQ. 

“To assist in investigating the PM impacts, wind speed and wind direction are being monitored. Additionally, images are collected for site conditions,” the DEQ explained. “PM10 and PM2.5 are measuring mass concentration while PM4 speciation measures composition.”

After a brief introduction from Town of Yoder Mayor, Norm Feagler, and a brief welcome by Nancy Vehr, Administrator for the State of Wyoming DEQ, Air Quality Division, Mark Gagen, Air Pollution Monitoring Program Manager for the State of Wyoming DEQ, Air Quality Division began the presentation with a short description on what particulate matter (PM) actually is.

According to the DEQ, PM is a mixture of solid and liquid droplets and the primary particles come directly from a source such as smokestacks, fires or construction sites. Secondary particles can be produced through atmospheric reactions of chemicals by sources such as power plants, automobiles, etc. according to the DEQ. 

“Again, thanks for letting us come up and talk to you guys. Hopefully, we can share some information with you. Maybe some of you have some of this information, some of you may not,” Gagen began. “We kind of put together a quick presentation and I think it would be better to wait until the end so that we can get through a couple of items.” 

Gagen explained the Yoder air quality site is being monitored and the data collected for validation. Gagen also explained some of the DEQ members are also uploading information to the WyVisNet site.

“Others are making sure it is on WyVisNet,” Gagen said. “The WyVisNet has been a really good tool for air quality to share with the public what air quality is. I know, over a period of time, you have been seeing some high readings. We are seeing them too. We are just trying to figure out what’s going on with it.”

Gagen explained to the Yoder residents the regulations for air quality. 

“Basically, this is what we are really going to go over today. We want to make sure that everyone knows what PM is, know that there are national and ambient air quality standards and what they are and where you can find them, kind of the monitoring objectives and what we have from the Yoder monitors here, then the monitoring parameters that we are focusing on out there,” Gagen explained. “It has kind of changed a little bit since we first got here, but it’s kind of because we are learning stuff ourselves. Then we are going to do a quick informational about WyVisNet, which is our website that provides not provides information here but all throughout Wyoming. Then we are going to do a quick summary of the data being collected.”

Gagen guided the community in attendance through various portions of the DEQ website, including the section on the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS) portion of the site.

“Basically, if you go on to our website and you hit that ‘ambient standards’ it will pull up this page. All of the criteria pollutants have ambient standards,” Gagen explained. “On this website, you can kind of get into the code of federal regulations that actually defines what the standard is, how to interpret the standard but all of that information is kind of within that website so you can find it. I do want to say, right now, the EPA (Environmental Protection Agency) doesn’t have any one-hour standards. It’s a 24-hour standard. So, when you look at our website, it is going to show a rolling 24 hours so that just kind of gives you a better idea of what it looks like.”

Gagen explained some monitoring data will have peaks and values because of how frequently the monitor is gathering air quality data. Gagen also explained there is no air quality standard for silica, which many residents believe is leading to health issues in the community. 

“There’s no standard for silica and there is no standard approved EPA method for it,” Gagen said. “Just be aware, there is no federally approved method. There are some methods that some other states have done.”

Vehr then took the microphone to provide clarification on the standards. 

“When Mark (Gagen ) is talking about ambient air quality standards, those are standards you’ll see, we have got one, I know it is small print up here,” Vehr said as she pointed to the slide. “But ambient health standards, the EPA sets those and they are based on levels protective of human health and they call those the ‘primary standard.’ Then they set ‘secondary standards’ which are public welfare and that’s everything but public health. When Mark is talking about how monitors capture data at different frequencies of time and then when you see a value that we post, based on the ambient standard, we’re measuring it against the timeframe that the EPA has established. So, they have established timeframes and levels for PM at the 2.5 size and at the ten size. They are different standards, but they are protective of health levels. If they are at that level and under, they are protective of human health,” Vehr said.

Vehr noted the air quality reports are for public use but the public also needs to be aware of their health. 

“It’s a piece of information that you can use to make decisions that you need to make for yourself because every human being is a little bit different,” Vehr said. “People want to know what it is right now. They don’t want to know what it is averaged over time. That’s how the EPA does it for health-based standards. There is a whole process. We show what EPA has and then we have adopted the same standards for Wyoming because they are protective of health.” 

Gagen pointed out the difference between the DEQ’s standard and those set in place by the EPA.

“For PM matter, PM10, there is a 24-hour standard so that is an average of 24 hours, midnight to midnight. The PM2.5 has two standards,” Gagen explained. “It has a 24 hour that is 35 micrograms for a cubic meter and that is midnight to midnight and then there is the annual that just got knocked down from 12 to nine. That is our three-year average. Nancy is correct, there are different standards and it’s even hard for me sometimes to keep them all straight about what I am doing.”

“This is a good source, the WyVisNet, to find information about all of the health standards with the health effects. It’s got all of that,” Gagen said. “It’s a pretty good site.”

Gagen then spoke about the DEQ’s monitoring objectives. 

“Basically, the reason we got these monitors out here is we had a few calls from the community. They are kind of concerned about an ag production operation that might be impacting in and around the city of Yoder. When we first did, we brought out a PM10 and a PM2.5 and the reason we are looking at the two different levels is at that point we were trying to figure out ‘What is the PM index?” Gagen explained. “We think they are being PM impacted in the city but what size is it and where can we learn a little bit and get to the next step.”

“What we found out in the long run is it might be good to get another sampler. It’s going to measure PM4. It is a little different than the continuous sampler out there,” Gagen said. “Right now, you can go on our website and see PM10 and PM2.5. You won’t be able to see the PM4 because it’s filter-based. What that means is we have to actually put a filter in the sampler, sample it and the collect it and send it off to the lab. The lab will tell us what they found in two to three weeks.”

The meeting concluded after a brief question and answer period from the public. 

“The EPA sets these ambient standards nationally and on silica, there are OSHA standards that apply to a workplace so think about somebody grinding a quartz countertop, the workers that work in that factory setting. There are OSHA standards on silica levels and there is also Mine Safety and Health Administration, MSHA, standards for workers in mineral processing on silica. There is no national standard for silica for health-based that EPA has established,” Vehr explained. “There are some states that have looked at silica exposure and they have things like toxicologists. So, you think of things like, Texas, they’ve got over 1,000 DEQ. They have got t toxicologists on staff in those, so they have done some research. Other states have done some research. There is a variety within the other states what those numbers are. There are values that other states use. This is brand new thing. We haven’t done it before in the state of Wyoming, in terms of doing this PM4 sampling for silica.”