Potential particulate impacts at the Grand Canyon from northwestern Mexico

Abstract

Project MOHAVE was a major air quality and visibility research program conducted from 1990 to 1999 to investigate the causes of visibility impairment in the Grand Canyon National Park region. At Meadview, a remote monitoring site just west of the Grand Canyon National Park, on September 1 and 2, 1992, the concentrations of sulfate (3.1 and 4.3 μg sulfate/m 3) were the highest seen in 6 years of monitoring at this site. During this period, the concentrations of SO 2 at Meadview were also abnormally high and approximately three times the sulfate concentrations, on a nmol/m 3 basis. High concentrations of sulfate and SO 2 extended south into southern Arizona and northwestern Mexico. Based on ambient atmospheric conditions, emissions from the Mohave Power Project (MPP) 110 km upwind of Meadview could not have been responsible for the majority of the regionally observed sulfur oxides. The geographical distribution of SO 2 and sulfate, and available source information suggest that northwestern Mexico was a significant source of the unusually high observed sulfur oxides. A CMB model developed during Project MOHAVE was used to apportion sulfur oxides at Meadview and other sampling sites throughout the study region for August 31–September 2, 1992. The results indicate that the contribution of MPP to sulfate at Meadview was typical. However, the transport of SO x from northwestern Mexico was elevated throughout much of the region during this time period. This led to the large increase in sulfate concentrations at Meadview on September 1 and 2. These results indicate that emissions from Mexico can be a significant source of particulate material in the Grand Canyon.