Air monitoring continues to expand in Linn County

For all its technological power, the air monitoring station at 530 Cobban Ct. SE is fairly unassuming. The station, a 6 by 10 foot trailer, is just big enough to fit Linn County Public Health environmental chemist Seth Zimmermann, a desk for his laptop and a collection of blinking monitors and replacement parts. Up a rickety metal ladder, a small white box full of tubes and wires measures air particles.

Installed in mid-October, the Cobban Court location, near McKinley STEAM Academy, is Linn County Public Health’s third air monitoring station. It’s the latest addition to the county’s growing network of tools to assess local air quality. Together, the monitoring stations and PurpleAir monitors around town give public health officials a comprehensive picture of the health of Linn County’s air.

Background

Last year the Wellington Heights Resiliency Hub became Linn County Public Health’s latest PurpleAir monitor location. PurpleAir monitors are relatively inexpensive air monitors that track particulate matter, a blanket term for solids and liquids suspended in the air, like dust and pollen. Particulate matter is one of six so called-criteria pollutants, major air pollutants the EPA monitors as part of the Clean Air Act.

PurpleAir monitors are useful for generating real-time information about air quality in a more focused location. However, they only monitor one criteria pollutant and are not as reliable as the EPA gold standard models. That’s why there are two PurpleAir monitors at each location.

“We run two of them so we can see if one of them’s flaking out,” said Zimmermann. He said his daily routine sometimes involves replacing or troubleshooting a faulty PurpleAir monitor at one of the county’s nine locations.

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In addition, the county operates three air monitoring stations that host gold standard equipment for multiple criteria pollutants like ozone and nitrogen dioxide. The Cobban Court site tracks particulate matter and air toxics. The site marks Linn County’s return to measuring air toxics, which it paused at least 10 years ago.

Why track air pollution in Linn County?

Zimmerman said there are no toxics or criteria pollutants he is especially concerned about for Linn County. Monitoring is more of a preventive effort given the industry and traffic present in the county, both of which increase air pollution.

Air quality monitoring also helps the public health department detect when wildfire smoke is reaching unsafe levels, which it did for brief periods in 2023.

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“One of the things that keeps me up at night is wildfire smoke,” said Wanda Reiter Kintz, air quality branch supervisor at Linn County Public Health. “We can control and we can regulate facilities. We can’t control wildfire smoke.”

Reiter Kintz said she got a lot of phone calls in 2023 when smoke from wildfires in Canada made the local air unusually dangerous. Real-time monitoring from the combined network of PurpleAir and gold standard sites made it possible for the county to issue safety alerts.

‘Filling a hole’ in monitoring efforts with air toxics

According to the EPA, hazardous air pollutants, also called air toxics, are “known to cause cancer and other serious health impacts.” Asbestos and benzene, which can be found in vehicle exhaust and cigarette smoke, are two examples.

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Linn County Public Health previously stopped tracking hazardous air pollutants due to a lack of funding. But Reiter Kintz said a contract through the Inflation Reduction Act awarded them $561,000 over a five-year period. The department will decide what equipment to maintain depending on what the data shows and what funding is available in the future.

“The toxics is a real kind of filling a hole that we felt like we had in Linn County,” said Zimmermann. “That’s something we’ve been looking at for a while and we’ve finally been able to put it together.”

How does air pollution affect the body?

While different pollutants affect the body in different ways, most primarily impact the respiratory and cardiac systems. They can make it harder to breathe, increase the frequency of asthma attacks and aggravate conditions like COPD and emphysema. Children and people with existing lung or heart issues are especially vulnerable.

Particulate matter specifically can cause additional problems by penetrating into the lungs and bloodstream, sending harmful chemicals throughout the body.

Particulate matter is a blanket term for solids or liquids floating in the air. Dust, smoke and pollen are examples of particulate matter. Studies indicate particulate matter exposure is linked to dementia, low birth weight and heart attacks, in addition to respiratory issues.

Real-time particulate matter readings from Linn County Public Health’s PurpleAir and regulatory monitors can be found by visiting fire.airnow.gov/ and selecting “click to geolocate.”

Comments: fern.alling@thegazette.com