"EPA Weighs Adding More Lead-Emission Monitors"

"The Obama administration moved Wednesday to expand a national network of monitors to track lead emissions, a troublesome source of industrial air pollution that continues to plague Chicago and other urban areas.

Rules proposed by the Environmental Protection Agency would re-evaluate whether more monitors are needed in large cities and close to factories that emit the toxic metal. The policy shift is a response to rules imposed last year by the Bush administration that exempted scores of polluters from scrutiny, including at least a dozen operating in Illinois.

The monitors will help determine whether factories are complying with tougher limits on airborne lead pollution. Faced with a court order, the EPA last fall lowered the limit to 0.15 micrograms of lead per cubic meter of air, 10 times more stringent than the old standard."

Michael Hawthorne reports for the Chicago Tribune July 23, 2009.