Overview
New Hampshire’s Air Quality Program is a blueprint for the State’s efforts to achieve and maintain air quality that is protective of public health and our natural environment.  The New Hampshire Department of Environmental Services, Air Resources Division, with guidance from the New Hampshire Air Resources Council, is committed to promoting cost-effective, sensible strategies and control measures to address today’s complex and inter-related air quality issues.  These issues include, but are not limited to, ground-level ozone, particulate matter, regional haze (visibility), mercury emissions, increasing concentrations of greenhouse gases, acid deposition, and air toxics.  In many cases, New Hampshire’s direct impact is limited since many problems that the state faces can only be solved on a regional or national basis.  Attainment of the ozone standard in New Hampshire, for example, cannot be accomplished independently of other states because violations in New Hampshire are principally the result of atmospheric transport from upwind states.

Given the complexity of and inter-relationships between the air quality issues facing New Hampshire, the goals, objectives, and components of New Hampshire’s Air Quality Program are based on the following overall considerations. These considerations are not necessarily ordered, but rather viewed collectively:

• Pollution prevention approaches, including energy efficiency/conservation programs, are preferable to control technology approaches whenever feasible and cost-effective.  Such approaches foster a sense of shared responsibility between New Hampshire’s businesses, industries and citizens.  Front-end prevention strategies eliminate emissions of harmful pollutants to the air, rather than just diminish them or shift the environmental impact to another media such as water or land.  Pollution prevention and energy efficiency programs provide opportunities to incorporate policies and measures that optimize multiple public health and environmental benefits.

• Actions should be supported by the most recent scientific and health effects data available, while at the same time recognizing that new information will emerge in the future.  Many ongoing state, (e.g., NH Comparative Risk Project), regional and national research efforts will provide better scientific data and improved understanding of ways to achieve multiple health and environmental benefits at lower cost.

• Public education and outreach activities should be emphasized because they transcend all programs and because the pollution contributions of individual citizen’s activities represent an increasing share of air pollution emissions.

• Alternative approaches to the “command and control” approach to regulation are needed to face today’s issues and to develop solutions that provide better environmental and public health outcomes faster and more cost-effectively.  Planning and regulatory efforts must focus on the development and implementation of programs that: