Atmospheric Research and Monitoring Study of Hazardous Substances: Second Annual Report

During this second year of the project, a network of three urban and one rural sampling stations has been established to monitor hazardous substances in the atmosphere of Illinois. Toxic trace elements and toxic volatile organic chemicals are the two important groups of chemicals selected for sampling. They can be released to the atmosphere as a result of the generation, treatment, or disposal of hazardous wastes and from a variety of other sources. Preliminary data show elevated concentrations of 2 out of 17 toxic trace elements analyzed in urban airborne particles in the Chicago and East St. Louis areas. The observed concentration levels are too low to have any known impact on human health, however. The toxic elements that were found probably resulted from a variety of industrial activities such as metal smelting, steel processing, and coal burning. Further data collection and analysis is under way to determine the particle size distribution of toxic trace elements, the concentration of vapor phase trace elements, and the concentration of volatile toxic organics in ambient air. Wind direction and other meteorological data will be correlated with the sampling of these chemicals to better estimate the relative contribution of various pollution sources to concentrations of hazardous substances in Illinois air.