During the past decade, research has shown that particulate emissions from open sources such as unpaved roads contribute significantly to ambient particulate matter concentrations in many areas. The current EPA emission trading policy, commonly called the bubble policy, allows excessive emissions from one source to be offset by improved control of another source within the same plant. In implementing the bubble policy, some plants have agreed to reduce fugitive dust emissions in lieu of tighter controls on process emissions. The document has been prepared to assist control agency personnel in evaluating unpaved road fugitive emissions control plans and to assist industry personnel in the development of effective control strategies for unpaved roads. The document describes control techniques for reducing unpaved road emissions, methods for quantifying or estimating emissions generation, and provides data for estimating the efficiency of the performance of various control technologies. Although fugitive particulate emissions can be reduced by reducing the extent of the source, the document focuses on the use of 'add-on' controls which do not affect the size or throughput of the source.

"September 1987." EPA/625/5-87/022.