Mass. set to install pollution sensors

About 300 monitors will measure air quality across state

Massachusetts will spend $775,000 to deploy more than 200 small community air sensors across the state, as well as nearly 100 more sophisticated sensors in low-income areas and communities of color. The sensors can measure harmful air pollutants, which have been linked to higher risk of respiratory and cardiovascular diseases.

“This is a great day,” said María Belén Power, Massachusetts undersecretary of Environmental Justice and Equity, as she stood outside of an air monitoring station at Kenmore Square on a recent afternoon.

The investment in new, hyperlocal air sensors, she said, will “make sure that communities have the kind of [pollution] data that they need.”

The existing air monitoring station in Kenmore Square is the size of a small trailer. It can’t be moved, requires staff members to check and report the data, and cost tens of thousands of dollars to build. The new air sensors that will be deployed by the state this year are much smaller (some can fit in the palm of a hand), mobile, and significantly cheaper.

They will allow regulators to move faster and spend less money to get realtime air pollution data, officials said.

This year, the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection will place nearly 100 air sensors in a handful of environmental justice communities, which are defined by the state as areas with a low median household income, a significant number of non-English speakers, or a relatively high percentage of people of color.

Roughly 50 of those will be multipollutant air sensors, which can measure pollutants, including ozone and carbon monoxide. They record the same types of pollution as the permanent stations at a fraction of the cost — around $7,000 each, versus tens of thousands, officials said.

The data will inform the state’s regulatory actions to reduce human exposure to air pollution, said Bonnie Heiple, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection, and will be publicly available so that residents can make decisions about

everyday activities, such as whether the air is healthy enough to exercise outdoors.

“Our most vulnerable [including] elderly people with preexisting health conditions can use this information to inform how they go about their day,” Heiple said.

“Everyone deserves access to clean, healthy air,” she added.

Air pollution is a public health hazard that can cause higher asthma rates and increase the risk of heart disease and stroke. Communities of color and low-income areas tend to be at a higher risk of air pollution in the United States in part due to a legacy of discriminatory housing policies and zoning that over time has often concentrated polluting industries and highways in those neighborhoods.

Governor Maura Healey’s administration has this year emphasized protecting communities of color from air pollution as part of an “Environmental Justice Strategy” announced in February.

Last month, the Department of Environmental Protection announced it would attempt to regulate the “cumulative impact” of pollution — a longtime request of environmental justice advocates. The rules would require regulators to take into account how much pollution an area is already burdened with before adding another source of pollution in the same vicinity.

In addition to the sensors placed in environmental justice communities, more than 200 “PurpleAir” sensors will be deployed to measure tiny particulate pollution, such as smoke and dust. Those sensors can display real time measurements of soot, smoke, and other fine particulate-matter pollutants.

In 2021, Massachusetts distributed 248 such sensors. The sensors’ data are displayed on an Environmental Protection Agency map of fires and smoke, as well as on the PurpleAir website.

Municipalities, tribal communities, and community and nonprofit organizations will be able to obtain those softball-size sensors from the state at no cost.

Both the “PurpleAir” sensors and the sensors that will be deployed in environmental justice areas are intended to obtain hyperlocal air pollution data. They are smaller and more limited than the state’s more sophisticated network of air monitoring stations. There are 24 air monitoring stations in Massachusetts, including four that can monitor toxic industrial pollutants called volatile organic compounds.

Heiple said that Massachusetts also recently obtained federal funding to build two more of the stationary, more sophisticated air monitoring stations this year: one in Saugus and one in Framingham.

“We are, as an administration, chasing every federal dollar we can bring home to Massachusetts to expand that network even more,” Heiple said.