cubic VVV

[James Smith]

I Googled using EPA and "cubic liter".  After spending
FAR too much time on this, I have come to the
following conclusion: there is no such thing as a
cubic liter (cubic gallon, cubic acre-ft, etc), and
references to such are erroneous, either through
misunderstanding of the concept or through sloppy
proofreading and editing.  (In writing this, more than
once I caught myself writing liter when I meant
meter.)  I've included links to just a few of the
sites.

Most of the instances I found where cubic liters was
used were clearly mistakes, and liter is the unit that
should have been used in some instances, cubic meter
in others; I found a few that were too ambiguous to
decide between liter and cubic meter, but cubic liter
was obviously wrong.

It is not uncommon to see cubic liter and cubic meter

or cubic liter and liter 
 used almost
interchangeably in the same document.

I also deduced that when the EPA first promulgated the
standard for lead in ambient air, it must have
erroneously given 1.5 micrograms per cubic liter as
the standard rather than 1.5 micrograms per cubic
meter.  This was carried over into at least one state
program, Montana, and several Records of Decision
repeat the error.  (EPA and Montana have corrected the
error in their rules.)

I found one occurrence where cubic liter was used,
supposedly, for emphasis or clarification: from the
MINUTES OF THE ASSEMBLY Committee on Government
Affairs, Seventieth Session, February 11, 1999, Carson
City, Nevada

*Assemblyman Mortenson asked Mr. Lawson to clarify his
testimony on EPA’s pCi standard for radon. Mr. Lawson
replied EPA recommended 100 pCi of radon per liter. He
reiterated the ambient radon in air was 4,000 pCi.

Mr. Mortenson asked for confirmation the radon
standard of l00 pCi was per "liter". Mr. Lawson
replied affirmatively.

Mr. Mortenson asked whether the radon standard of
4,000 pCi in air was per cubic meter. Mr. Lawson
replied it was not; rather, the standard was per cubic
liter.*

http://www.leg.state.nv.us/70th/Minutes/AM-GA-990211-AB-74,%20AB-88,%20AB-98,%20AB-100.html

The uses of cubic liter in non-technical sites seem to
reflect, more often than not, misunderstanding of the
concept, but, as with technical documents, there were
also instances that appear due to bad proofreading,
with cubic liter interchanged incorrectly with liter
or cubic meter, as the case may be, within a single
document.

The site

http://www.globalsecurity.org/wmd/library/report/enviro/eis-0225/eis0225_cuom.html


actually includes the definition: µg/m3 = micrograms
per cubic liter (for those who’s browsers don’t do
well with symbols, that’s micrograms per cubic meter
equals micrograms per cubic liter.)

A sample of other sites:
http://www.house.gov/duncan/2004/dpa083104.htm
http://leadfreefuture.org/index.php?topic_id=6&PHPSESSID=abd10ab65756ad71d04a3d781ca1e446
http://www.acsh.org/factsfears/newsID.326/news_detail.asp
http://www.awma.org/pubs/envirowire/article.asp?id=820
http://66.102.7.104/search?q=cache:zw5qX7Z3jMkJ:permanent.access.gpo.gov/waterusgsgov/water.usgs.gov/pubs/wri/wrir_994286/frontmatter.pdf+epa+%22cubic+liter%22&hl=en








__________________________________
Yahoo! Mail - PC Magazine Editors' Choice 2005
http://mail.yahoo.com