The NADP North American Atmospheric Mercury Initiative
Tim Sharac1, David Gay2, David Schmeltz1, Mark Olson3 and Eric Prestbo4
The National Atmospheric Deposition Program launched a new initiative to monitor atmospheric mercury monitoring stations across North America. The NADP initiative is a collaborative effort involving many federal, state, and tribal agencies, academic researchers, and industry partners. The network envisioned will monitor, summarize, and report on concentrations of atmospheric mercury species (elemental, gaseous oxidized, and particulate-bound) from automated, continuous measuring systems; concentrations of total mercury in precipitation; and meteorological measurements. Currently 20 sites are participating to provide high-resolution, high-quality atmospheric data.
Datasets generated from this effort will be used to support many objectives, including estimating mercury dry deposition, assessing mercury source/receptor relationships, evaluating atmospheric models, and determining long-term trends. Future work will focus on continued development of a quality assurance program (enhancing data reduction, improving both the data management SOP and the field SOP, etc.) and providing data on the web.
We will also continue to reach out to a broad cross-section of agencies and institutions to coordinate mercury monitoring activities, building on current efforts and encouraging new collaborative partnerships. The presentation will summarize the status of the initiative including the structure for participation, standardization of methods, quality assurance, site locations, site liaison results, and data handling.
1 USEPA, Clean Air Markets Division, 1200 Pennsylvania Avenue, N. W., Washington, DC 20460
2 NADP Program Office, Illinois State Water Survey, 2204 Griffith Drive, Champaign IL 61820
3 USGS, 8505 Research Way, Middleton, WI 53562
4 Tekran Research and Development, 330 Nantucket Blvd, Toronto, ON, M1P 2P4