Climate and western fires: EPA research on smoke and water quality
Citation:
Markwiese, James. Climate and western fires: EPA research on smoke and water quality. 2024 National Enforcement Investigations Center - Environmental Technical Summit, Denver, CO, May 21 - 22, 2024.
Impact/Purpose:
This invited presentation will highlight work of interest to EPA's National Enforcement Investigations Center that the Pacific Ecological Systems Division, Ecology Effects Branch is pursuing in wildfire including smoke effects on air and water quality, prescribed fire effects on air quality studies using our mobile laboratory and the use of combustion products like biochar to remediate contaminated soils.
Description:
Wildland fire smoke impacts millions of people in the United States every year. The EPA’s Office of Research and Development is addressing our increasingly smokey future with state-of-the-art instrumentation in a mobile air quality laboratory based at the PESD lab in Corvallis OR. While the negative impacts of PM2.5 on air quality and human health are well established, wildfires mobilize additional pollutants such as heavy metals which threaten clean air, clean water, and negatively impact human health. This presentation will include recent EPA efforts to study smoke impacts and address a wide range of emerging issues wildland fire is contributing to detrimental air and water quality. Topics also include the role of smoke as a potential vector of disease as well as the use of organic combustion products, such as biochar, to remediate heavy-metal contaminated soils.