A year after installing about 30 air quality sensors at local schools and community centers, the Chattanooga collaborative behind the pollution detection program learned Thursday it is getting a federal grant to more than triple the number of air sensors to expand the program across Hamilton County. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is awarding $491,171 to the Enterprise Center in Chattanooga for its Chattanooga Leveling Environmental Equity Across Neighborhoods project. The project will add another 130 of the air quality sensors to provide even more real-time, localized data on air particulates and other pollutants to help improve the visibility of air pollution information. Chattanooga was the only Tennessee project included in 132 monitoring programs picked to receive the funding as part of a $53.4 million nationwide initiative to enhance air quality monitoring in underserved and more polluted cities. “These grants will give communities the tools they need to better understand air quality challenges in their neighborhoods,” EPA Regional Administrator Daniel Blackman said in an announcement of the grant recipients. “EPA’s investment in ARP (American Rescue Plan) funding will not only advance the agency’s mobile air monitoring labs and air sensor loan programs but improve the agency’s ability to support communities in need of short-term monitoring and air quality information.” Blackman said the new sensors will provide more granular understanding of air quality across Hamilton County communities that routinely rank at the bottom statewide for asthma, chronic illnesses and hospitalization. Chattanooga was also chosen because of EPB’s communitywide fiber optic network, which allows faster internet service for connections to all of the sensors, which are monitored regularly through the Chattanooga Smart Community Collaborative. The collaboration includes the Enterprise Center, UTC’s Center for Urban Informatics and Progress, EPB and Hamilton County schools. Live data visualization, health information and educational resources will be hosted publicly for residents, and sensor data will be imported into repositories, including Chattanooga’s Open Data Portal for access by citizens, researchers and public health agencies. “As a smart community, Chattanooga relies on data,” Geoff Milliner, chief operating officer for the Enterprise Center, said in a telephone interview Thursday. “Better, more granular data can result in better outcomes, especially when it comes to the environment.” Chattanooga is one of only four cities in a collaborative US Ignite project, funded by the National Science Foundation. The project, begun by researchers at the University of Utah, is bringing a network of approximately 50 fine particulate matter air quality sensors online, creating a live map of air quality conditions across the city for local researchers, citizen scientists, students and other curious residents to utilize. The project began as an effort to better understand the relationship between air pollution and incidence rates of COVID-19. Milliner said the first sensors were tested in early 2021, and the initial network of sensors was operational in November 2021.

SALT LAKE CITY (ABC4) – With winter comes inversion season, which usually occurs between December and February. The inversion brings bad news: pollutants from burning fuels are trapped near the ground, resulting in poor air quality. As a helpful guide Salt Lake County Health Department recently started a new online map This shows real-time air quality data from air surveillance sensors placed across the county. The map, called AirView, displays readings from two sensor networks: AirU an air quality measurement system from the University of Utah and PurpleAir a Draper-based sensor manufacturer. TELLUS Networked sensor solutions a local environmental health service developing air quality sensors takes all measurements, corrects them based on local conditions and plots these results on the map. “AirView is another tool for people who live, work and visit Salt Lake County to learn about the current air quality in their immediate area so they can make informed decisions about their health and activities,” Corbin said Anderson, head of SLCoHD’s air quality office. “Checking AirView can help you decide whether to avoid driving, wear a particulate filter mask outdoors, or change your furnace filter to improve indoor air quality.” According to the press release, AirView has more sensors than other map visualizations currently available. The dots on AirView represent an attached sensor. Next to the map is a “health alert” color scale, which assigns a color to the dots based on the level of particulate matter (PM2.5) measured at each location. The higher the number on the scale, the more dangerous the air quality becomes. AirVirew currently shows that most Salt Lake County locations have green dots indicating safe air quality. “Information is power, and this will help residents make good decisions to protect their health, and businesses will know when to encourage employees to work from home,” said Salt Lake County Mayor Jenny Wilson. “Air quality is something that every family in Salt Lake County is concerned about, and this is a great resource as we head into the winter and inversion months.” Utah is notorious for its poor air quality. The Salt Lake City-Provo-Orem area was recently named the 10th most polluted place in the country state of the air a study of American Lung Association. The Salt Lake City government has unveiled numerous action plans in the past to combat environmental pollution. Utah Health Authorities would like to remind Salt Lake County residents that burning solid fuels is prohibited from November through March, unless the Utah Air Quality Department determines it is an “unrestricted action” day, what can be checked on DEQ’s website. Source