Spurred by the rising sulfate concentrations in the northeastern United States, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has established the Sulfur Transport and Transformation in the Environment (STATE) program to quantitatively determine the impact on local air quality of distant source pollutants and their transformation products. The first major STATE field study was the August 1978 Tennessee Plume Study conducted near the Cumberland Steam Plant in northwestern Tennessee. Representatives from 25 governmental agencies, universities, research institutes, and private contractors participated in this joint meteorological/chemical study in an attempt to define plume transport, dispersion, transformation, and removal rates under various meteorological conditions. A description of the field activities reveals the preplanned experimental guidelines and the flexibility with which the sampling activities were performed. The analytical priorities have since been established and various investigators are performing analyses of the collected data with results to be forthcoming.