The Silverbell Mountains were obscured by dust and pollution Monday near I-10 and Pinal Air Park in Pinal County, which has been flagged for air quality by the EPA.

Benjie Sanders /Arizona Daily Star

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The Environmental Protection Agency is planning to designate Pinal County as a federally listed area for dust pollution, despite the county's efforts to head off such a designation.

In fact, the announcement came last week at an Air Quality Summit the county was sponsoring to brainstorm ways to control air particulates.

Though the timing of the announcement was unfortunate, it was good that it happened in a room full of stakeholders who were there to work on solutions, said Heather Murphy, a Pinal County spokeswoman.

"In one morning, this went from a theoretical 'someday' problem to today, here and now in this room everyone has a role in creating the solutions," Murphy said.

The violations concern "PM10" — large pieces of dust or pollution in the air, as well as matter that behaves like the larger pieces.

Parts of Pinal County exceed the maximum PM10 standard more than anywhere else in the country, according to information presented by one of the air quality summit's featured speakers, Colleen McKaughan, who is an associate director for the EPA in our region.

Five of the sites on a list of the top 13 worst offenders in the United States are in Pinal County. A feed lot known as Cowtown tops the list, leaving Philadelphia, which came in second, in the dust.

Phoenix is No. 12. Pima County is not on the list.

But for comparison's sake, on Monday when Pima County issued an advisory that warned sensitive people to stay indoors because of dust, the Pima County Department of Environmental Quality showed a PM10 reading of 123 at its monitoring site near East Grant Road and North First Avenue. That number is below the EPA's 24-hour standard of 150 micrograms per cubic meter.

Scientific studies have linked the breathing of particulates with aggravated asthma, chronic bronchitis, decreased lung function and premature death in people with heart and lung disease.

Murphy said McKaughan told the summit group that when the EPA officially pulls the trigger, it will notify the Arizona governor, who will have 120 days to submit a plan for how the state and county will work together to mitigate the designation.

Then a plan review period will follow, with an official plan due 18 months later, developed jointly with the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality.

McKaughan "made it very clear that Pinal County does have a problem and needs to develop a plan to address it that meets the EPA requirements," Murphy said.

McKaughan could not be reached for comment.

Pinal County Director of Air Quality Don Gabrielson on Monday said he was already working on information to send to the EPA.

The county was warned in 2007 that it needed to get its house in order, but "we just didn't manage to get it done in time," he said.

He had hoped the county would be able to head off EPA action.

While he can easily think of several sources that contribute to the problem, it's harder to pin down how much each source contributes.

He has previously mentioned the rock products, agriculture and building industries as contributors to the dust issue.

"The solution needs to be brought to bear by the sources that are contributing, and it's a lot easier to reach a consensus if people agree on the definition of the problem," Gabrielson said Monday.