Issue 3, 2008
From the journal:

Journal of Environmental Monitoring

Assessment of diesel particulate matter exposure in the workplace: freight terminals†

Rebecca J. Sheesley,a   James J. Schauer,*a   Thomas J. Smith,b   Eric Garshick,cd   Francine Laden,bd   Linsey C. Marref  and  Luisa T. Molinaeg  

* Corresponding authors

a Environmental Chemistry and Technology Program, University of Wisconsin, 660 N Park St., Madison, WI, USA
E-mail: jjschauer@wisc.edu

b Exposure, Epidemiology and Risk Program, Department of Environmental Health, Harvard School of Public Health, Boston, MA, USA

c Pulmonary and Critical Care Medicine Section, Medical Service, VA Boston Healthcare System, USA

d Channing Laboratory, Department of Medicine, Brigham and Women's Hospital, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA

e Department of Earth, Atmospheric, & Planetary Sciences, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA, USA

f Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Virginia Polytechnic and State University, Blacksburg, VA, USA

g Molina Center for Energy and the Environment, La Jolla, CA, USA

Abstract

A large study has been undertaken to assess the exposure to diesel exhaust within diesel trucking terminals. A critical component of this assessment is an analysis of the variation in carbonaceous particulate matter (PM) across trucking terminal locations; consistency in the primary sources can be effectively tracked by analyzing trends in elemental carbon (EC) and organic molecular marker concentrations. Ambient samples were collected at yard, dock and repair shop work stations in 7 terminals in the USA and 1 in Mexico. Concentrations of EC ranged from 0.2 to 12 μg m−3 among the terminals, which corresponds to the range seen in the concentration of summed hopanes (0.5 to 20.5 ng m−3). However, when chemical mass balance (CMB) source apportionment results were presented as percent contribution to organic carbon (OC) concentrations, the contribution of mobile sources to OC are similar among the terminals in different cities. The average mobile source percent contribution to OC was 75.3 ± 17.1% for truck repair shops, 65.4 ± 20.4% for the docks and 38.4 ± 9.5% for the terminal yard samples. A relatively consistent mobile source impact was present at all the terminals only when considering percentage of total OC concentrations, not in terms of absolute concentrations.

Graphical abstract: Assessment of diesel particulate matter exposure in the workplace: freight terminals

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Article information

DOI
https://doi.org/10.1039/B715429A
Article type
Paper
Submitted
08 Oct 2007
Accepted
14 Dec 2007
First published
31 Jan 2008

J. Environ. Monit., 2008,10, 305-314

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Assessment of diesel particulate matter exposure in the workplace: freight terminals

R. J. Sheesley, J. J. Schauer, T. J. Smith, E. Garshick, F. Laden, L. C. Marr and L. T. Molina, J. Environ. Monit., 2008, 10, 305 DOI: 10.1039/B715429A

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