This report deals solely with the air pollution effects of the on-site construction process itself rather than with off-site materials processing. In this context, air pollution regulations have had little effect on the highway construction and maintenance industry because most regulations are primarily concerned with persistent, permanent sources rather than sporadic, temporary sources such as construction. Open burning can be adequately controlled through present technology. Although bans on open burning caused significant price escalation when first introduced, the development of high combustion burners and sophisticated chipping equipment has been reported to result in disposal costs approximately equal to the costs of open burning. Tests conducted during this research program have indicated that fugitive dust generated by construction traffic does not significantly contribute to the ambient particulate level because the particles tend to settle out within right-of-way limits. Furthermore, the industry has long undertaken adequate mitigation procedures in response to neighbours' nuisance complaints. Hydrocarbon test results have revealed that essentially no violations of the ambient air quality standards are attributable to highway paving and priming. The quantity of reactive hydrocarbons emitted from the more volatile cutbacks is small compared to that of vehicular exhaust; that which is emitted, in fact, is dispersed or diluted to trace concentrations within a short distance of its source. (Author/publisher)
Abstract