116 3rd St SE
Cedar Rapids, Iowa 52401
Linn County monitoring air quality with neighborhood sensors
Sensors offer residents a snapshot of air quality in area
Jun. 10, 2024 5:30 am, Updated: Jun. 10, 2024 7:38 am
CEDAR RAPIDS — The Linn County Public Health is expanding its systems for monitoring air quality across the county, including adding an additional location for its portable air quality monitors.
The county has two regulatory air monitoring stations — one in Cedar Rapids and one in Coggon — with expensive, heavy duty monitors that are used to measure the air quality to ensure it remains within the national standard or issue alerts if it doesn’t.
But the county also uses smaller air quality sensors that are slightly less accurate, but are cheaper and more portable, to collect day-to-day data from more locations. The small sensors, made by Utah company PurpleAir, are deployed in nine locations around Linn County. The most recent location, at the Wellington Heights Resiliency Hub, was added in the last month.
“These sensors are extremely low cost. They are about $280, as compared to over $20,000 for a regulatory monitor. The nice part is they’re very portable, they’re easy to use, and even though they’re not as accurate as our regulatory monitors, they do provide a good snapshot of particulate matter particle pollution in different areas around the county,” said Wanda Reiter Kintz, the Linn County Public Health air quality branch supervisor.
“They really relate to our mission of environmental justice and health equity because we can deploy them in areas of concern within the county,” Reiter Kintz said.
The sensors also are quick to set up, so they can be easily replaced when they malfunction, and could be easily relocated in an emergency situation.
The county keeps a supply of spare sensors on hand for when the current sensors need to be replaced. The spares are set up alongside the larger, regulatory sensors in Cedar Rapids, and tested for at least a month before they are deployed elsewhere, according to Dave Burns, the Linn County senior air quality scientist.
“Being a low-cost sensor, their durability is sometimes not great. I think the average life-span is supposed to be about two years, but sometimes you’ll have some that just go out within a month or two, or we’ve had a few that just come right out of the box not working great. It’s a lot of cheaper components in there,” Burns said.
When it comes to gathering official data about statewide air quality levels, or issuing public safety alerts during poor air quality periods — like when Iowa was filled with smoke last summer carried in the air from wildfires in Canada — the county mostly relies on the more accurate regulatory air monitors, according to Burns.
But the smaller sensors provide an opportunity for the public to see air quality levels in their own neighborhoods.
The locations of where the sensors are deployed are determined using a variety of factors, including a tool created by the U.S. Environmental Protective Agency called EJScreen. The screening tool combines socioeconomic factors and environmental factors in an area to indicate the risk levels of residents there.
The risks associated with poor air quality tend to be heightened in historically disadvantaged neighborhoods, areas where fewer people have access to health care and where a larger number of people with compromised immune systems live, according to Reiter Kintz.
“Poverty can affect your vulnerable populations, and it’s been fairly well shown that industry tends to be in these areas, which would cause different types of pollution,” Reiter Kintz said. “When you talk about these disadvantaged neighborhoods with vulnerable populations, it tends to really go hand in hand with having more illnesses.”
Linn County’s PurpleAir sensors currently are deployed at five locations in Cedar Rapids: the Harris Building near NewBo and the Oakhill Jackson neighborhood; the Area Substance Abuse Council main campus at 3601 16th Ave. SW, the Linn County Emergency Management building on the Kirkwood Community College campus; the air quality regulatory site by 11th Street and E Avenue NW, and the Wellington Heights Resiliency Hub.
The other four sensor locations are in Central City, Hiawatha, Lisbon and Coggon.
The real-time air quality information from the sensors is available on PurpleAir’s website, which has an interactive map showing the location of all PurpleAir sensors. The sensors can be purchased by anyone, so there are some sensors connected to the system that are owned by non-government organizations or individuals.
Linn County has been using the PurpleAir sensors for about two years with the goal to gather data than can be used for future health related projects, as well as to provide a way for the public to easily check on hyperlocal air quality concerns.
“Right now, we’re just gathering data, but we’re hoping to work with our Assessment and Health Promotion branch on looking at different illnesses, particularly those respiratory illnesses associated with poor air quality,” Reither Kintz said. “It’s mainly more for public information in real time, so people can make decisions about whether or not to stay in that day, or to take various precautions for their health.”
Comments: (319) 398-8328; emily.andersen@thegazette.com
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