Air Pollution

Things related to air pollution from large industrial sources of pollution.

Aqua – June 29, 2023 Afternoon

Wildfire smoke blankets Central NY, not as a bad locally in the Capital Region.

Notice the blocking on the east, trapping the smoke over CNY, while the Taconics had clouds. This was probably later in the evening yesterday, after the clouds moved to our east, which is why locally it was fairly clear for a while.

New York’s Communities With 50 Largest Hazardous Air Polluters

Hazardous air pollutants, also known as toxic air pollutants or air toxics, are those 187 air pollutants that are known or suspected to cause cancer or other serious health effects, such as reproductive effects or birth defects, or adverse environmental effects. This interactive map shows the communities that host 50 largest hazardous air polluters based on the 2013 data (most recent available from the DEC). The communities hosting the largest HAP polluters are shown in red, lower on the list are blues. The biggest HAP emitters in the state are Alcoa Massena Operations (West Plant), Eastman Business Park, Reynolds Metals St Lawrence Reduction Plant, Lafarge Building Materials Inc and Morton Salt Inc.

More about Hazardous Air Pollutants: https://www.epa.gov/haps/what-are-hazardous-air-pollutants
Data Source: https://data.ny.gov/Energy-Environment/Title-V-Emissions-Inventory-Beginning-2010/4ry5-tfin/

NPR

New air pollution satellite could support environmental justice : NPR

David Jones dusts his house in the Curtis Bay neighborhood of Baltimore almost daily. He rarely opens his windows, even when the weather is beautiful, because the outdoor air makes him feel sick.

Immediately across the street is the Curtis Bay coal terminal, where heaps of coal taller than Jones' house are piled up for overseas shipment. Dust from the coal mounds enters people's cars, homes — and lungs.

"You wake up in the morning and your throat hurts," Jones says. In the bathroom sink, he can see black specks in his spit.

Jones is one of millions of people in the United States who live with dangerous air pollution, including gases like nitrogen oxide and sulfur dioxide, ground-level ozone and tiny particulates that coat every surface. Some particles are so small they worm deep into the lungs and cross into the brain.

Process and Display Data from Air Quality Sensors • AirSensor

Process and Display Data from Air Quality Sensors • AirSensor

The AirSensor R package is being developed to help air quality analysts, scientists and interested members of the public more easily work with air quality data from consumer-grade air quality sensors. Initial focus is on PM2.5 measurements from sensors produced by PurpleAir.

The package makes it easier to obtain data, perform analyses and create visualizations. It includes functionality to:

download and easily work with PM2.5 data from PurpleAir visualize raw “engineering-level” data from a PurpleAir sensor visualize data quality using built-in analytics and plots aggregate raw data onto an hourly axis create interactive maps and time series plots convert aggregated PurpleAir data into ws_monitor objects appropriate for use with the PWFSLSmoke package