moist air moving in from the Gulf of Mexico. The range of mean annual rain- 

 fall among the seven counties of Northwest Florida is 57 to 67 inches. 



Physiography 



Northwest Florida is part of the coastal plain, divided between the West- 

 ern Highlands and the Coastal Lowlands. Their interface roughly parallels the 

 100-ft contour, but there are uplands ranging from 100 ft to more than 300 ft 

 above mean sea level. The highest elevation in Florida (345 ft) is located in 

 Walton County near the Florida-Alabama state line. 



Soils 



The soils of the region are about evenly divided between well-drained 

 soils in the north and poorly drained soils along the coast (Florida General 

 Soil Atlas). 



ENVIRONMENTAL RESOURCE ISSUES 



AIR QUALITY 



Ambient Air Qual ity 



The quality of the ambient air in Northwest Florida, considered to be 

 good, is attributed to a scarcity of heavy industry. 



Federal, State and Local Standards 



The ambient air quality and standards for Florida are given in Table 1. 

 Trend data described in this report are from the U.S. Environmental Protection 

 Agency (1980) summary statistics "Inventory by Pollutant 1970-79," taken from 

 the National Aerometric Data Bank Inventory and from the Department of Envi- 

 ronmental Regulation (DER), Bureau of Air Quality publications. 



Because of the technical nature of the following discussion it will be 

 useful for the reader to consult Table 1 in conjunction with the text. 



Historical Levels of Compliance 



Particulates . A limited amount of monitoring of air particulates took 

 place in Northwest Florida in the 1970' s. Some of the results are given here. 



In Apalachicola, Gulf County, in 1970-73, the annual arithmetic mean of par- 

 ticulates ranged between 58 to 45 ug/m^. In Gulf Breeze, Santa Rosa County, 

 the mean fell from 51 ug/m in 1973 to 40 ug/m ^ in 1979. In Panama City, Bay 



County, the mean fell from 44 ug/m^ in 1975 to 41 ug/m^ in 1979. In Pensa- 

 cola, Escambia County, particulate air quality fluctuated. One site (Number 

 103540002) was close to or over Federal secondary and Florida primary stand- 

 ards. At this site in 1978, most particulates measured from 51 ug/m^ to 65 

 ug/m3, but maximum concentrations ranged from 107 to 198 ug/m^. Concentra- 

 tions measured at other stations in Pensacola were relatively low and showed 

 no trends. In Port St. Joe, Gulf County, the arithmetic mean of particulates 



246 



