State ozone monitor out in the woods

It's enough to make an eco-observer scoff — the air quality monitor that measures ozone for Charleston is located in the breezy, woodsy national seashore on Cape Romain.

That's the machine that recorded 74 parts per billion of ozone in the air, one part per billion below the new federal safety standard of 75 parts, the point where the Environmental Protection Agency might demand vehicle exhaust testing, more industrial pollution controls or road building restrictions, starting in 2010.

The monitor is a dozen or so miles from the traffic, ports and industries whose carbon fuel exhausts react with sunlight to create ozone, the air pollution blamed for heart attacks and breathing problems, and the smog that is considered the chief greenhouse gas.

But wait, there's a good reason, the EPA, state air quality managers and conservationists say. Ozone takes several hours to form, and in that time the emissions that form it drift. The EPA requires air managers follow a formula when locating monitors, based on predominant summer wind direction, population centers and other factors.

The monitor is in Cape Romain because "that's where we expect the maximum ozone concentrations to be," said Tommy Flynn, air quality data analyst with S.C. Health and Environmental Control.

Read more in tomorrow's edition of The Post and Courier