EAST HARTFORD, Conn. — It's air quality awareness week, and the Connecticut Department of Energy and Environmental Protection (DEEP) started it off by unveiling a new mobile air quality monitoring vehicle.
It's called a Geospatial Measurement of Air Pollution (GMAP) vehicle, and it's designed to travel anywhere in the state to detect and record data in real-time.
"Hartford and New Haven perpetually rank among the top 20 cities in the country where it's the hardest to live with asthma," DEEP Commissioner Katie Dykes said, citing the vehicle's importance to serve communities most at risk to health issues from poor air quality.
The state has 14 stationary air quality monitoring sites, but now with the new vehicle, they will be able to travel to places where monitoring was not possible before.
"We've been able to adapt a lot of really sensitive equipment to fit inside of a car," Dykes said.
The Ford Explorer Hybrid has high-precision GPS, instruments to detect and record 16 different air pollutants, and weather data.
"We've been waiting for years for something like this vehicle, that can usher in a new era of testing hyper-locally," said Dr. Mark Mitchell, the Co-Chair of the CT Equity and Environmental Justice Council.
The vehicle and its equipment cost $300,000, funded in large part by an EPA grant.
“This cutting-edge technology will help ensure air quality is safe in communities across Connecticut – especially in communities with environmental justice concerns which have been overburdened with poor air quality,” said EPA New England Regional Administrator David W. Cash.
It’ll be on the road at least once a week, and has already responded to air quality complaints in North Canaan and Newington
"Going forward the intent is to also use it in a more focused fashion, in historically overburdened environmental justice communities. We're going to start right here in East Hartford and Hartford," said Jake Felton, director of DEEP's Air Quality Enforcement Division.
For more information, see DEEP’s GMAP webpage at the following link: Geospatial Measurement of Air Pollution.
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