AIRNow Strategic Planning Meeting
December 3-5, 2003
EPA RTP Campus Facility
Research Triangle Park, NC
Background: The AIRNow program has grown from its nascence in 1997 as an ozone
mapping system encompassing the northeastern United States to a nation-wide
air quality mapping and forecasting program. AIRNow collects data from over
100 state and local air quality agencies (stakeholders) operating over
1500 monitoring sites, generates hourly animations for 100+ domains, collects
air quality forecasts from more than 300 cities, and disseminates information to
7 weather service providers, USA Today, and The Weather Channel. AIRNow is
adding new features including year-round operations, PM2.5 mapping and
forecasting, AIRNow-Tech providing access to real-time data, and AQI History
enabling historical and current-year AQI data queries. AIRNow products are
increasingly seen on web sites and television, and in newspapers throughout the
United States. AIRNow is becoming recognized as the national resource for
real-time and forecasted air quality data.
With this growth of, and the public’s exposure to, AIRNow, identifying and
planning how to improve the current capabilities and add new features to
AIRNow are increasingly important. This strategic planning meeting is designed
gather together a diverse group of stakeholders to identify, prioritize, and plan
current and future improvements to the AIRNow program.
Objectives:
Determine future research, operations, forecasting, outreach, and communication
needs and priorities for the AIRNow program. Develop five- and ten-year goals
for improving existing and adding new capabilities to the AIRNow program.
Prioritize and document the work needed to meet these goals.
Format:
Assemble selected stakeholders to conduct a two-and-one-half-day workshop to
meet these objectives. The workshop will consist of presentations of the current
status and challenges of the AIRNow program; participants will then break into
subgroups, each focusing on one of these topic areas: research/innovative
approaches, operations, forecasting, outreach, and communication. Examples of
discussion for each topic areas are:
Innovative Approaches – investigating different data sets (i.e., ASOS, satellite,
Forest Service remote monitors, NOAA sensors etc.), surrogate methods for
ozone/PM, mapping enhancements, how to do true AQI map, new tools
Operations – AIRNow/AQS integration/partnership, GIS, internal EPA system
versus external, XML versus OBS format, datalogger to AIRNow process,
database and web capabilities, NOAA/WSP operations
Forecasting – tool development, integrating met/NOAA/NASA products,
education and training
Outreach – product development, marketing/direction, focus groups/surveys,
measurement/verification of program
Communication – existing/new end-user products (public and media),
data/product requirements, education and training for WSPs/TV meteorologists,
NOAA-EPA model product
Each subgroup will be led by a chair or co-chairs responsible for
 guiding the subgroup to identify future needs in each topic area,
 developing a vision and future goals,
 presenting a summary of the subgroup’s ideas, suggestions and
recommendations to the whole group, and
 documenting tasks and priorities needed to meet these goals via
development of draft white paper prior to end of workshop
A preliminary schedule of activities might include the following components:
Day 1 (AM): Overview of AIRNow, charge to group, subgroup meetings
(PM): Subgroups continue meeting
Day 2 (AM): Subgroup chairs report initial results to whole group; subgroups
reconvene
(PM): Subgroups meet to prioritize and begin documenting
recommendations
Day 3 (AM): Final review of recommendations from each subgroup, review
of recommendations by whole group
Possible
Attendees:
Attendees for the planning meeting will be invited from federal, state, and local
government agencies; universities; and the private sector. Initial subgroup
designations are listed in parenthesizes.
Innovative Approaches/Research
Mike Gilroy, Puget Sound Clean Air Agency, Co-chair
(mikeg@pscleanair.org)
Dave Conroy, EPA Region 1, Co-chair
(conroy.dave@epa.gov)
George Allen, NESCAUM
Tim Dye, STI
Mike Rizzo, EPA Region 5
Rudy Husar, CAPITA
Jim Meagher, NOAA
Lee Alter, WRAP
James Hemby, EPA
Operations
Bill Gillespie, MARAMA, Co-chair
(bgillespie@marama.org)
Phil Dickerson, EPA, Co-chair
(dickerson.phil@epa.gov)
Tim Hanley, EPA
Jim Renfro, NPS
Ron Stockett, MO
Aaron Childs, Indianapolis
Craig Anderson, STI
David Updike, EPA NTSD
Mike MacDougal, EPA Region 1
Steve Goranson, EPA Region 5
Forecasting
Bill Ryan, Penn State, Co-chair
(wfr1@psu.edu)
Pat Dolwick, EPA, Co-chair
(dolwick.pat@epa.gov)
Joe Cassmassi, South Coast Air Quality Management District
Evan Shipp, San Joaquin Valley APCD
Lew Weinstock, Forsyth Co. Environmental Affairs Dept.
Paula Davidson, NOAA
Jeff McQueen, NOAA
George Bridgers, NC Division of Air Quality
Bryan Lambeth, Texas
Clinton McDonald, STI
Outreach
Kerry Shearer, Sacramento Metropolitan AQMD, Co-chair
(kshearer@airquality.org)
Debbie Stackhouse, EPA, Co-chair
(stackhouse.debbie@epa.gov)
Laura DeGuire, Michigan DEQ
Tammy Eagan, Florida Dept. of Environmental Protection
Jeff Whitlow, EPA
Millie Hayman, NC
Dave Guiliano, EPA Region 9
Katherine Pruitt, ALA
Stephanie Cooper, STAPPA/ALAPCO
Debbie Sliter, NEETF
Communication
Jen Carfagno, The Weather Channel, Co-chair
(jcarfagno@weather.com)
Alison Davis, EPA, Co-chair
(davis.alison@epa.gov)
Unknown, Weather Service Provider
Greg Fishel (or other), TV Meteorologist
Sam Bell, Jefferson County Department of Health
Lori Tussey, EPA
Lynn Perri, USA Today
Dave Rowson, EPA/NOAA
Dave Jones, StormCenter Communications