Evaluating the national air toxics assessment (NATA): Comparison of predicted and measured air toxics concentrations, risks, and sources in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania

The National Air Toxics Assessment (NATA) is an ongoing modeling effort by the Environmental Protection Agency to predict air toxics concentrations, sources, and risks at the census tract level throughout the continental United States. To evaluate NATA, archived data collected at seven sites in and around Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania were compared to 2002 NATA predictions. The sites represent 3 different source regimes (mobile dominated, industrial point source dominated, and background). The evaluation considered 49 air toxics (37 gas-phase organics, 10 metals, coke oven emissions and diesel particulate matter); NATA’s performance was judged based on model-measurement comparisons of concentrations, health risks, and source contributions. On a concentration basis, NATA performance varied widely ranging from excellent for carbon tetrachloride to differences of more than a factor of 100 for low concentration chlorinated compounds. However, predicted concentrations were generally within a factor of 2 of measured values for air toxics that were estimated to be the primary cancer risk drivers; therefore NATA provided reasonable estimates of the additive cancer risks and risk ranking of air toxics. NATA performs better on average in Pittsburgh than nationwide. Comparison of source apportionment results indicates that NATA consistently underestimated concentrations of compounds emitted by large point sources as well as concentrations of chlorinated compounds, but overestimated the risks from mobile sources in Pittsburgh. Therefore, in Pittsburgh, NATA sufficiently prioritizes air toxics that drive potential cancer risks, but does not identify the sources of these priority air toxics.