Division of Air Quality Monitoring and Quality Assurance

In 1977, Congress amended the Clean Air Act to include provisions to protect the scenic vistas of the nation’s national parks and wilderness areas. In these amendments, Congress declared as a national visibility goal:

The prevention of any future, and the remedying of any existing, impairment of visibility in mandatory Class I Federal areas which impairment results from manmade air pollution. (Section 169A)

At that time, Congress designated all wilderness areas over 5,000 acres and all national parks over 6,000 acres as mandatory federal Class I areas. These Class I areas receive special visibility protection under the Clean Air Act.

The 1990 amendments to the Clean Air Act established a new Section 169(B) to address regional haze. To address the 1990 Clean Air Act amendments, the problem of long-range transport of pollutants causing regional haze, and to meet the national goal of reducing man-made visibility impairment in Class I areas, EPA adopted the Regional Haze Rule in 1999.

Alaska has four Class I areas subject to the Regional Haze Rule and designated as Class I areas in August 1977:

1. Bering Sea Wilderness Area
2. Denali National Park
3. Simeonof Wilderness Area
4. Tuxedni National Wildlife Refuge

Additional Monitoring Considerations

In Alaska, Class I Areas are managed by the National Park Service (NPS) and the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service (USFWS).

The Alaska Regional Haze SIP includes a monitoring plan for measuring, estimating and characterizing air quality and visibility impairment at Alaska’s four Class I areas. The haze species concentrations are measured as part of the IMPROVE (Interagency Monitoring of PROtected Visual Environments) monitoring network deployed throughout the United States. Alaska uses four IMPROVE monitoring stations representing three of the four Class I Areas. Three of these stations (Denali National Park and Preserve, Simeonof, and Tuxedni) were deployed specifically in response to Regional Haze rule requirements. There is no air monitoring being conducted at the Bering Sea Wilderness Area due to its remote location.

Class I Areas

Bering Sea Wilderness Area

The Bering Sea Wilderness Area is located off the coast of Alaska about 350 miles southwest of Nome. Hall Island is at the northern tip of the larger St Matthew Island.

The Bering Sea Wilderness Area had a DELTA-DRUM sampler placed on it during a field visit in 2002. However, difficulties were encountered with the power supply for the sampler and no valid data are available from that effort. No IMPROVE monitoring is currently planned for the Bering Sea Wilderness Area because of its inaccessibility.

Monitoring data and additional information for the Alaskan IMPROVE sites are available from the EPA website: Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments

Denali National Park and Preserve

Denali National Park and Preserve (DNPP) is a large park in the interior of Alaska. It has kept its integrity as an ecosystem because it was set aside for protection fairly early in Alaska’s history. Denali National Park headquarters lies 240 miles north of Anchorage and 125 miles southwest of Fairbanks, in the center of the Alaska Range. The park area totals more than 6 million acres. Denali is the only Class I site in Alaska that is easily accessible and connected to the road system. Denali has the most extensive air monitoring of Alaska’s Class I areas, so more detailed examinations of long-term and seasonal air quality trends are possible for this site.

IMPROVE monitoring sites were established at two locations within or near the boundaries of the National Park and Preserve. The first air monitoring site is located near the eastern end of the park road at the Park Headquarters. A second, newer site, known as Trapper Creek, is located to the south of the Park at another site with reliable year-round access and electrical power.

The Denali Headquarters monitoring site (DENA1) is across the Park Road from park headquarters, approximately 250 yards from headquarters area buildings. The site (elevation of 2,125 feet) sits above the main road (elevation 2,088 feet). The side road to the monitoring site winds uphill for 130 yards, providing access to the monitoring site and a single-family residential staff cabin. The hill is moderately wooded, but the monitoring site sits in a half an acre clearing. During the park season, mid-May to mid-September, 70 buses and approximately 560 private vehicles per day loaded with park visitors traverse the road. During the off season, approximately100 passenger and maintenance vehicles pass within 0.3 miles of the monitoring site. Private vehicles are only allowed on the first 14.8 miles of the Park Road.

The Trapper Creek IMPROVE monitoring site (TRCR1) is located 100 yards east of the Trapper Creek Elementary School. The site is located west of Trapper Creek, Alaska and a quarter mile south of Petersville Road. The site is the official IMPROVEE site for Denali National Park and Preserve and was established in September 2001 to evaluate the long-range transport of pollution into the Park from the south. The elementary school experiences relatively little traffic during the day, about 4 buses and 50 automobiles. The school is closed June through August. This site was selected because it has year-round access to power, is relatively open, and is not directly impacted by local sources.

IMPROVE monitoring data have been recorded at the Denali Headquarters IMPROVE site from March of 1988 to present. The IMPROVE monitor near the Park’s headquarters was the original IMPROVE site. Due to topographical barriers, such as the Alaska Range, it was determined that the headquarters site was not adequately representative of the entire Class I area. Therefore, Trapper Creek, just outside of the park’s southern boundary, was chosen as a second site for an IMPROVE monitor and is the official Denali IMPROVE site as of September 10, 2001. The headquarters site is now the protocol site. A Clean Air Status and Trends Network (CASNET) monitor is located near the Denali Headquarters IMPROVE site.

Simeonof Wilderness Area

Simeonof Wilderness Area comprises 25,141 acres located in the Aleutian Chain, 58 miles from the mainland. It is one of 30 islands that make up the Shumagin Group on the western edge of the Gulf of Alaska. Access to Simeonof is difficult due to its remoteness and the unpredictable weather. Winds are mostly from the north and northwest as part of the mid-latitude westerlies. Occasionally winds from Asia blow in from the west. The island is isolated and the closest air pollution sources are marine traffic in the Gulf of Alaska and the community of Sand Point.

The Fish and Wildlife Service placed an IMPROVE air monitor in the community of Sand Point to represent the wilderness area. The community is on a nearby, more accessible island approximately 60 miles north west of the Simeonof Wilderness Area. The monitor has been on-line since September 2001. The location was selected to provide representative data for regional haze conditions at the wilderness area.

Tuxedni National Wildlife Refuge

Tuxedni National Wildlife Refuge is located on a fairly isolated pair of islands in Tuxedni Bay, Cook Inlet in Southcentral Alaska. There is little human use of Tuxedni except for a few kayakers and some backpackers. An old cannery, built near Snug Harbor on Chisik Island, is not part of the wilderness area; however it is a jumping off point for ecotourists staying at Snug Harbor arriving by boat or plane. The owners of the land have a commercial fishing permit as do many Cook Inlet fishermen. Set nets are installed around the perimeter of the island and in Tuxedni Bay during fishing season.

Along with commercial fishing, Cook Inlet has reserves of gas and oil that are currently under development. Gas fields are located at the Kenai area and farther north. The inlet produces 30,000 barrels of oil a day and 485 million cubic feet of gas per day. Pipelines run from Kenai to the northeast and northeast along the western shore of Cook Inlet starting in Redoubt Bay. The offshore drilling is located north of Nikiski and the West McArthur River. All of the oil is refined at the Nikiski refinery and the Kenai Tesoro refinery for use in Alaska and overseas.

The Fish and Wildlife Service installed an IMPROVE monitor near Lake Clark National Park to represent conditions at Tuxedni Wilderness Area. This site is on the west side of Cook Inlet, approximately 5 miles from the Tuxedni Wilderness Area. The site was operational as of December 18, 2001, and represents regional haze conditions for the wilderness area. In 2014 the property owner and site operator notified the US Fish and Wildlife Service that he would no longer be able to service the site. USFWS, US NPS and DEC cooperated on finding a new site location on the Kenai Peninsula, which allows easier access. A new site was establish roughly 3 miles south of the community of Ninilchik.

Additional Monitoring Considerations

DEC published a final study report for the Regional Haze Trans-boundary Monitoring project in July 2012: Final Report

One of the driving factors for the study was the quantitative evaluation of foreign contribution to local air quality impacts. While long-range transport of pollutants was observed and documented through various measurement techniques, DEC was unable to quantify international source contribution even as a whole. Current sampling methods do not provide enough time resolution to adequately document short events lasting only a few days i.e., the IMPROVE sampling schedule misses 2/3 of the year because samplers operate every third day. DRUM samplers which operate on a semi-continuous basis i.e., collecting 3-hour samples, initially seemed a viable method to collect year-round data and provide a comparison to the IMPROVE chemical analysis. Even if all the other problems encountered with operating the DRUM samplers in a remote field setting could be overcome, a reliable quantitative comparison to the IMPROVE data set is not possible given the low mass loading on the DRUM sampling strips combined with uncertainty for start and end hours.

DELTA-DRUM Samplers have been used at several sites in Alaska for relatively short periods. Researchers have unsuccessfully modified these samplers for remote winter use in Denali Park. Drum samplers were set up at the Denali and Trapper Creek sites as well as in McGrath and Lake Minchumina in February and March 2008. They experienced numerous mechanical and pump problems due to severe winter conditions and proved to be too problematic. These samplers operated intermittently between February/March 2006 and April 2009, resulting in very little usable data.

DEC still has concerns about the location of the Denali headquarters IMPROVE site as being representative of the entire Class I area. The Denali Headquarters IMPROVE site is located within the area of most heavy use and development and, thus, may not be representative of the pristine wilderness that makes up the remainder of the park lands. Lake Minchumina was clearly the cleanest site. An argument could be made that most of the 6 million acres of (DNPP) best resemble Lake Minchumina with its current 13 residents compared to Denali headquarters or Trapper Creek which see nearly a half a million visitors per year. Most of the park visitors (432,301 in 2008), and (DNPP) staff (145 permanent, 290 summer seasonal) and Talkeetna staff (10 permanent, approximately 20 summer seasonal) are concentrated around (DNPP) headquarters (personal communication Blakesley 2012, June 6; DNPP, 2012). Traffic is mostly concentrated on the main highway and the single dirt road through the wilderness area (DNPP, 2012).

The question that still needs to be answered is whether or not the Lake Minchumina site is more representative of the entire park than the two existing IMPROVE sites at Denali Headquarters and Trapper Creek. Before a final decision for relocation would be made, additional studies should be conducted that integrate meteorological observations with aerosol concentrations more quantitatively than was possible for this study analysis. As DEC continues to implement its Regional Haze plan and performs required updates in future years, the experience and data gained through this study can be used to inform the development and planning for new monitoring efforts that may provide additional insight into aerosol impacts in Alaska’s Class I areas. Given the vast, remote areas of Alaska, the challenge remains to develop air monitoring approaches that can be successfully operated in the State’s wilderness areas.

Future studies will use more robust sampling equipment for long term monitoring. Because of the remoteness of Alaska’s Class I sites, DEC will most likely explore other sampling equipment for regulatory monitoring to demonstrate compliance with the Regional Haze Rule glide-path. As the concentrations of anthropogenic aerosols decreases toward background it will become more difficult to monitor successfully in the future without advances in monitoring instrumentation and pump and power technologies.