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United States Earth Science

US Air Pollution Monitoring Network Falling Into Disrepair (reuters.com) 97

Posted by msmash from the closer-look dept.
The U.S. air pollution monitoring network has fallen into disrepair after years of budget cuts and neglect, leaving tens of millions of Americans vulnerable to undetected bad air quality from events like wildfires to industrial pollution, according to a report by the investigative arm of Congress. Reuters: The conclusions from a 2-1/2-year audit by the U.S. Government Accountability Office (GAO) confirm key findings in a Reuters special report published last week that detailed broad failures in the air-pollution monitoring system, whose data guides U.S. regulatory policy and informs the public about health risks. Federal funding for the air monitoring network, which is overseen by the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and operated and maintained by state and local environmental agencies, has declined by about 20% since 2004, after adjusting for inflation, leaving it in poor condition, according to the GAO report viewed by Reuters. The GAO report said some agencies have reported termite damage and leaky roofs at shelters housing sensitive but aging pollution monitoring equipment, and one state agency resorted to shopping on eBay to find used monitor parts because the manufacturer had stopped making them.
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US Air Pollution Monitoring Network Falling Into Disrepair More

US Air Pollution Monitoring Network Falling Into Disrepair

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  • It’s simple. (Score:3)

    by burtosis ( 1124179 ) on Monday December 07, 2020 @12:01PM (#60803308)
    This way we don’t have bad air.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by dgatwood ( 11270 )

      It's true for coronavirus. Less testing means fewer cases. Donald said so. [rolls eyes so far back in head that they get stuck]

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
        No, kess testing only effects the number of detected cases, less testing makes tracing more difficult and,will as far as I understand potentially lead increased spread , but who cares the numbers look good right

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by hey! ( 33014 )

      That joke would have been funny back when it was possible to believe people couldn't be stupid enough to think that way.

    • You're being sarcastic but the reality is that most people can't be convinced air quality is bad unless they smell something bad, like smoke, and even then they don't realize what it can do to their health, long or short term. PM2.5 is small enough to be absorbed by your alveoli into your blood stream, which can then negatively affect every organ in your body. It isn't just people with chronic health problems that are affected, and in fact long-term exposure to bad air quality can cause health problems like

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by gweihir ( 88907 )

        Indeed. And the effects current research finds from these micro-particles are somewhere between bad and worse.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      When Shrub was governator of Texas he changed reporting of chemical releases from mandatory to voluntary. He then took credit for a 55% reduction in chemical spills. That's math, as done by conservatives.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
        Wow fixing the numbers instead of the root cause, who would ever thing politicians would come up with that trick? Ohh yea that their standard mo, get the cheap talking points and move on, and if we can help our major donors in the process, all the better

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by cusco ( 717999 )

          Just like how Ronnie Raygun "fixed" inflation and unemployment: they changed the way they were measured.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      You are right! Just as Covid-19 goes away if you do not test...

  • Pollution regulations interfere with the plutocrat's profits, and so they buy pro-pollution law-makers and judges.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      Correction: should be "plutocrats' profits".

    • Pollution regulations interfere with the plutocrats' profits, and so they buy pro-pollution law-makers and judges.

      Now tell the Plutonians [fandom.com] that Pluto isn't a planet and get them really riled up.

  • ...that it was all smoke and mirrors.

  • Crowdsourced (Score:4, Informative)

    by hawguy ( 1600213 ) on Monday December 07, 2020 @12:13PM (#60803362)

    If you want to help address the government's failings, you can join the Purple air quality monitoring network:

    https://www2.purpleair.com/ [purpleair.com]

    $250 buys a Wifi enabled sensor that you can mount outdoors.

    There are other crowdsourced networks too, but Purple is the one I'm most familiar with -- I used their website during the last wildfire season, several of my neighbors have sensors, so it gave very localized information.

    • Yes, but that makes a Commie globalist who is out to destroy America and make Baby Jesus cry.

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by bn-7bc ( 909819 )
        How doeswanting to get your hands on accurate ish localised data make you a communist? I don’t get it, but then again I’m for Europe, ans as everybody knows all Europeans are brainwashed ( rolss eyes)

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by tlhIngan ( 30335 )

          How doeswanting to get your hands on accurate ish localised data make you a communist? I donâ(TM)t get it, but then again Iâ(TM)m for Europe, ans as everybody knows all Europeans are brainwashed ( rolss eyes)

          Because the US doesn't believe in climate change. Global warming, climate change, that's leftist propaganda, and the only thing on the left are Democrats, Socialists and Commies. And everyone knows leftists are bad.

          Whereas Republicans are true red-blooded Americans driving trucks that belch sm

    • Plus one on this concept, and plus one to purpleair. Pollution (air, water, land) is the perfect use-case for crowd sourcing. First, the individual is incentivized to spend their own money because you want to know how this pollutant is affecting your neighborhood, your house, etc versus some distant place. Second, the cost is very reasonable (aka doesn't require a mass spectrometer or something) , and lastly, in the case of PurpleAir the cost to contribute your information to overall effort is negligibl

    • Wish they were as clean as Texas and no I'm not being sarcastic.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by hawguy ( 1600213 )

        Wish they were as clean as Texas and no I'm not being sarcastic.

        In what way? This site [usnews.com] ranks Texas 40 overall, 28th in industrial toxins and 48 in pollution health risk. Compared to 9, 5, and 19 respectively for California.

        On what scale does Texas rank cleaner than California? Looking at one week averages on the Purple site show most of California and Texas in the ~50-60 range except for the Central Valley of California where I suspect that weather conditions are holding pollutants lower to the ground.

        It's hard to do a direct comparison since California is much better c

    • Same. State information was extremely coarse grain, both spatially and temporally, which made it extremely inaccurate during the fires. I built a smart clock out of an old laptop to have air quality continuously displayed on my wall (along with time, weather, ...) so that we'd be able to tell kids go outside when air quality was good. Sometimes, they had a 10-20 minutes windows between 2 very bad peaks (going from 200 to 80 to 200). Purple air has a free API to query with JSON, so it's very easy to leverage

  • The fine article... (Score:3)

    by VeryFluffyBunny ( 5037285 ) on Monday December 07, 2020 @12:24PM (#60803410)
    ...makes it sound like it's accidental or negligent. This is a very calculated & deliberate policy.

  • Like the Arecibo Observatory.. the country crumble (Score:3)

    by takochan ( 470955 ) on Monday December 07, 2020 @12:27PM (#60803430)

    Like the Arecibo Observatory.. the country crumbles..

    Each month that goes by, infrastructure and technology that was leading edge, crumbles, the homeless camps proliferate (some parts of California now have real favela!) and the US resembles places like Brazil more and more, rather than a leading developed country.

    I wonder if the disintegration of the Roman Empire was like this..

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cusco ( 717999 )

      Yes, complete with the military budgets and hiring mercenaries by the thousand.

    • Re:Like the Arecibo Observatory.. the country crum (Score:4, Informative)

      by smooth wombat ( 796938 ) on Monday December 07, 2020 @01:11PM (#60803740) Journal
      I wonder if the disintegration of the Roman Empire was like this..

      Oddly enough, yes it was. There are direct parallels between then and now. In both cases there were rulers whose only goal was enriching themselves and the Senate was too impotent and/or weak to reign them in. Both grew heavy with debt as corruption and warfare took hold, and the people were held in check by insignificant handouts.

      As each succeeding administration was unable, unwilling or didn't care to make amends, the problems compounded until no one bothered to do more than was necessary to keep the wheels turning. Money was no longer invested in infrastructure but instead funneled to pockets (see corruption above) of those in power who used that money to corrupt the system further through bribes and other inducements to their friends and allies.

      Right now we would be at the Caesar stage, though obviously the con artist is in no way comparable in any fashion to Caesar other than narcissism and his ability to drive the country into debt.

      As we saw with Rome, after about 40 AD its slow disintegration picked up pace until the original entity disappeared three centuries later, replaced by an even more impotent and incompetent administration which also went by the wayside.

    • Yes, but if we fixed such things the important things wouldn't get done, such as increasing a wealthy person's stash.

  • No monitoring makes this easier (Score:3)

    by Rick Zeman ( 15628 ) on Monday December 07, 2020 @12:37PM (#60803500)

    Anyone who doesn't think there's any linkage between monitoring being in disrepair and this article from today [washingtonpost.com] is exceedingly naive.

  • Setting the Stage for Revolution (Score:1, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    One purpose of popular government is to solve some of the problems that come with more traditional forms of rule, like aristocracy. A people ruled by a good king are happy, but a people ruled by a despotic or inept king are not just unhappy with the results, but frustrated at the lack of options. Waiting for the king to die of old age or perish in an unfortunate hunting accident is not a satisfactory solution.

    Similarly, rule by a strongman or a military coalition offers no way to redress grievances, at leas

    • Re:Setting the Stage for Revolution (Score:4, Funny)

      by cusco ( 717999 ) <brian@bixby.gmail@com> on Monday December 07, 2020 @01:00PM (#60803674)

      I honestly think that the RNC bribed the voting machine companies to lose the Oval Office because they don't want to clean up this clusterfuck. It's going to dreadful for the next four years and Biden is going to get the blame.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by PPH ( 736903 )

      Perhaps our only hope is for a system of government where the ruling class (however they may come to power) have limited powers. You might not like their political stance. But it really doesn't matter since they have little influence over your life.

      And now we return you to our regularly scheduled topic ...

    • Democrats, for example, are promising to amnesty tens of millions of illegal aliens [...] Exactly no one voting in either party wants any of this

      Be careful about applying your beliefs to others.

      There's plenty of us Evil Satanic Socialists...er...Democrats who believe in "Give me your tired, your poor, your huddled masses yearning to breathe free".

    • Oh good copy pasta being modded +5 now.

  • Really, unless funding from the EPA specifically states what the money can and cannot be used for then it's up to the states to use that money for whatever is related to that program.

    It sounds like the states are prioritizing their staff salaries, not maintenance, which is typical of state-administered stuff; for any state, but definitely Democratic-leaning states, infrastructure maintenance is not something they want to spend money on.

    Think it's a problem? Complain to your governor. We don't really want th

  • There is a 'crowdsourced' alternative (Score:3)

    by Rick Schumann ( 4662797 ) on Monday December 07, 2020 @01:03PM (#60803698) Journal
    If you're not aware of Weather Undergroud [wunderground.com], go check that out and click on 'Wundermap', then click the 'Air Quality' button. People who participate in the network in your local area who have air quality monitors as part of their weather instrumentation will have the AQI number displayed.
    If it's of serious importance to you, you can of course purchase the equipment and participate in the network yourself.
    Something I should point out however is that you have to take all the readings of all kinds you see on Weather Underground with a grain of salt, because it is private citizens purchasing their own equipment, and you can't guarantee that it's all installed optimally for optimal accuracy (an AQI monitor mounted in a location that doesn't get good airflow could give false readings), or that it's maintained adequately to give accurate readings, but the fact that it's crowdsourced means that you can see the outliers and decide for yourself if you should count them as 'accurate' or not. Where I live the County maintains a small network of AQI monitoring stations of their own, and they often conflict with what WU network stations are reporting. But having access to more data from more sources isn't a bad thing.

    Lastly I'd like to point out that you can buy hand-held portable air-quality monitors for a couple hundred dollars. With all the wildfires in my state this year and with how much time I spend outdoors I was concerned enough for my health to purchase one. If you do you'll be surprised at what the air quality is also like inside your own home (or car, or workplace), too, especially CO2 levels, which can be 2, 3, 5 or more times what it is outside (outside it's typically ~400ppm). High CO2 levels can make you feel drowsier and less alert; hard time waking up in the morning? Might be related.
    As a sidebar to the subject of indoor air quality, I've read that having houseplants can remove some CO2 and other substances in the air inside your house. It's something I've personally been considering.

    • Re:There is a 'crowdsourced' alternative (Score:4, Interesting)

      by jeff4747 ( 256583 ) on Monday December 07, 2020 @01:28PM (#60803840)

      As a sidebar to the subject of indoor air quality, I've read that having houseplants can remove some CO2 and other substances in the air inside your house. It's something I've personally been considering.

      After a cooking adventure left my apartment smelling like a spice aisle for 3 days, I bought a Pothos [gardeningknowhow.com]. It quickly absorbed all the smell. It's been extremely easy to care for, and despite my neglect I haven't been able to kill it over the last 22 years. It's moved with me several times, been locked inside a freezing moving van for days, and today does its job in my kitchen/living room.

      So, if you want a plant to scrub the air for you with extremely low effort on your part, I can recommend a pothos.

  • OMG cuts cuts cuts Not sure about (Score:3)

    by oldgraybeard ( 2939809 ) on Monday December 07, 2020 @01:25PM (#60803826)
    anyone else, looked at the article, no data just unsupported statements about such and such.
    Considering I don't trust anything government officials or the media(our so called journalist) say. And this article has no links to any data, the reports or anything to support their positions.
    This is not worth the time to read.
  • If you just ignore it, it doesn't exist. Humans wish everything into existence through prayers. Except the Bible. That was totally the word or god and not humans. And also, you can ignore everyone but the Bible as well. Except for the things your church or you deem as outdated and inconvenient for modern times.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by gweihir ( 88907 )

      On the plus-side, these morons will exterminate themselves. On the minus-side, there are too many of them and they will likely take everybody else with them.

  • We've been igoring 24,000 deaths/yr for decades (Score:3)

    by rbrander ( 73222 ) on Monday December 07, 2020 @01:56PM (#60803994) Homepage

    That's the estimated early-death toll from asthma, increased heart attacks, strokes, and so on. The numbers tick up in every downwind plume from coal plants and other soot sources.

    If we could really internalize that as a loss, rather than "oh, that's just life", we'd have gone to extraordinary lengths to switch to nuclear, or anything non-soot-emitting, decades ago. France went nuclear in the 1970s, of course, with great success.

    Just sayin'.

    • " France went nuclear in the 1970s, of course, with great success."

      Yeah, great success, I live 4 miles from one of their uninsured reactors and I'm not even in France.

      • Ok. Sounds like if it's stull running from the 1970's its working well. That's alot of carbon not in the air.

        • Yes and lots of jobs for a million years to guard the ashes.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by rbrander ( 73222 )

          The topic is people dying from soot, so let's take that 24,000/yr for the States and divided down to about 5,000 a year for the French population. Times 40 years is around 200,000 Frenchmen that are above ground, enjoying that low-carbon (low-soot!) air.

    • Is that all? You can't even get the country to give a fuck about 280000 deaths in 9 months. 24000/year is basically irrelevant. Some must die so others can buy a new superyacht.

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