Air quality monitoring is expanding in southwest Colorado, with new sensors being installed to help communities better understand local pollution levels.
One morning in June, Emile Elias stood outside the Durango Public Library and pointed to a gray box on a big pole. It’s a Quanti-Q modular air quality monitor.
“We chose to put it here so that it's really accessible to a lot of people and so people can see it and learn more about air quality in the area,” Elias said.
Elias is the founder of ECO Impact Solutions, which is an environmental consulting firm located in Durango. She is leading the new Southwest Colorado Air Quality Project — a three-year air quality monitoring project funded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
“It's pretty nondescript. It's smaller than a toaster, and it is underneath a solar panel,” Elias said about the monitor. “So, really, when you walk up, what you see is this gray box with four different wires coming out, and that's where all of the magic happens.”
This is one of five air quality monitors that have recently been installed across southwest Colorado this summer. There are monitors at the middle school in Pagosa Springs, the Pine River Library in Bayfield, the school in Silverton, on the campus at Fort Lewis College, and the Durango Public Library.
These monitors record particulate matter, ozone, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, wind speed, and direction. A few years ago, the Colorado Department of Public Health and Environment published a study that explained that there were elevated ozone levels in the valleys in the Durango area.
Ozone occurs both in the Earth's upper atmosphere and at ground level. But Ozone at ground level is a harmful air pollutant. It’s the main ingredient in “smog."
According to the EPA, ozone can be transported long distances by wind. So even rural areas like southwest Colorado can experience high ozone levels.
According to Elias, ground-level ozone forms more on sunny, warm days and can irritate lungs and make it more difficult to breathe.
Ozone isn’t the only air quality concern in this region. Particulate matter like wildfire smoke and dust can also negatively impact public health.
“And so, that's part of what this study is attempting to measure,” Elias said. “And also, there's limited air quality monitoring in this part of the state, in this part of the world.”
Southwest Colorado’s economy relies heavily on outdoor recreation and tourism. So poor air quality can impact people who work and spend a lot of time outside. This data could help protect these populations.
These monitors collect data that will be publicly accessible to help residents better understand local air quality conditions. And community members can also participate in the study. Currently, there are 15 plug-in air monitors available at libraries around the region. These are small, portable monitors people can check out.
“So this is another component of the project where people are able to measure particulate matter at their homes, and learn a little bit more about what's happening in their own backyards,” Elias said.
But she says sometimes monitoring the air in southwest Colorado isn’t always exciting.
“We do have a person that's been monitoring for us for a while now,” Elias said. “He has a purple air monitor, and he's actually said it's pretty boring, because in general, the air quality is pretty good. And so, I would say it can be pretty boring here until we have a wildfire or a dust storm.
Elias says having that data will be valuable in the years to come as communities grapple with changing environmental conditions due to climate change.
Learn more about the project and see real-time air quality indexes in southwest Colorado at Southwest Colorado Air Quality Project.