By Carl Kanaskie, Lancaster Group
The Lancaster Group, at a well-attended public meeting in mid-April, discussed and shared some early results of its PurpleAir Initiative, a project designed to boost the amount of particulate matter data available for Lancaster County—an area that was given an "F" recently for short-term particle pollution by the American Lung Association.
Realizing there were only two government-regulated sensors monitoring this information for the county and determining that was not enough, the Lancaster Group recruited volunteers to monitor 10 new sensors it purchased from PurpleAir, . For the uninitiated, PurpleAir which is a crowd-funded, hyper-local air quality monitoring network that transmits data through a Wi-Fi connection to a real-time, public access map. While not as robust as regulatory sensors (like the two in Lancaster County), those used by PurpleAir are a popular supplement to them as they are considered fairly accurate for particulate matter. A sensor was displayed at the meeting and Group member Allison Zechman, the initiative organizer and the key speaker for the evening, demonstrated how it functions.
Six of the group's sensors have been installed and are gathering information at volunteers' homes. Three others will be mounted soon. All sensors are at county locations apart from each other. Zechman anticipates that the project will lead to development of a county map that reveals more completely the dangers associated with fine air particles and their effects on the health of local residents. The project plan, as it unfolds, is to have an additional sensor placed at a local college and to have that institution eventually analyze and disseminate data generated by all the sensors.
Among those attending the meeting besides Lancaster Group leaders and members, were the monitor volunteers, who had a chance to meet each other for the first time and to chat about their findings to date. They are Kevin Stewart, director of environmental health for the American Lung Association; Alice Yoder, Lancaster County Commissioner; Tom Simpson, Franklin & Marshall College Sustainability Coordinator; and Sean Nolan, of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection.
For more details about the initiative, email Allison Zechman at afzechman@gmail.com or Jane Druce at janedruce@gmail.com. Complete information about the Sierra Club Lancaster Group is available here.
This blog was included as part of the May 2024 Sylvanian newsletter. Please click here to check out more articles from this edition!