Air monitoring network growing

Western Connecticut Clean Air Action’s network of air monitoring stations is growing. Sherman and Cornwall recently voted to purchase monitors.

The network is designed to establish a baseline air quality before Cricket Valley Energy Center in Dover, N.Y., comes online in 2020, and then to continue to monitor the air quality once the plant is operational.

These satellite monitors will be in addition to WCCAA’s current central Aeroqual M65 monitor already installed at the Kent School and the Aeroqual Y1 units ordered by both the town of Washington and High Watch Recovery Center in Kent. This network will supplement the state Department of Energy and Environmental Protection’s existing stations that are further away, according to the WCCAA’s most recent update.

The AQM65 at Kent School measures ozone, and nitrogen dioxide, as well as fine particulate matter which is dangerous to people’s health. It also gathers meteorological data to correlate changes in air quality with weather conditions. The smaller AQY1 units located in surrounding towns will track the same three pollutants but not the meteorological components. Data from all the stations will be compiled, analyzed, archived and shared with the public as well as with the DEEP and others, according to the WCCA’s most recent update.

Kent School, The Marvelwood School, South Kent School, High Watch Recovery Center, The Berkshire Litchfield Environmental Council, Cornwall Conservation Trust, Housatonic Valley Association, The Kent Land Trust, Weantinoge Heritage Land Trust, and the Towns of Washington, Kent, Sherman and Cornwall have all contributed to the network.