More data will help Vancouver make sense of report saying area is among hardest hit by air pollution

Addressing Vancouver’s air pollution begins with collecting data about how much there is.

“More data provides more accuracy,” said Uri Papish, Southwest Washington Clean Air Agency executive director. “When you look at where these monitoring centers are — or aren’t — you can see the gaps.”

The Washington Department of Ecology has rated Vancouver among 16 communities in the state most impacted by air pollution, including carbon monoxide, lead, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, particle pollution and sulfur dioxide. Residents in these communities die an average 2.4 years earlier than other Washingtonians and are twice as likely to have poor health, such as lung and heart disease.

Washington pledged that it would install 50 new air-quality monitors and sensors across the 16 communities. Additional data will help regulatory bodies create stricter air-quality standards, effectively reducing air pollution, Papish said. But the number going to each place is unclear.

Ecology and the Southwest Washington Clean Air Agency said the number of monitors coming to Vancouver depends on varying factors: community size, pollution of concern, patterns in existing data, as well as feedback from residents.

Ecology hosted a November open house in Spokane, one of the 16 communities deemed overburdened by air pollution. An in-person meeting in Vancouver in the first half of the year will help determine monitor placement. A date hasn’t been set yet.

Existing network

Vancouver’s air-quality network was established in 1962 to measure total particulates.

The Southwest Clean Air Agency and Ecology operate two monitoring sites in Vancouver, both of which measure fine-particle pollution. One of the sites also measures ground-level ozone, the product of chemical reactions between pollution and sunlight.

In 1974, Ecology installed the area’s first ozone sensor, which has captured decades worth of ozone conditions, a “valuable historical record,” department spokeswoman Susan Woodward said. The agency added a particulate matter monitor in 1998.

Vancouver’s new devices could be small and inexpensive and easily hang on a post, such as SensWA, a solar-powered sensor that Ecology developed. But this device measures only levels of particulate matter. Instruments vary depending on the pollutant to be monitored, Woodward said.

Funding for the air-monitoring network expansion comes from the passage of Washington’s 2021 Climate Commitment Act, a cap-and-invest program that funds projects to ease climate impacts.

Washington’s 2021-23 budget allocated $1.1 million to expand its air-monitoring network. Ecology also received $10 million to establish a new community grant program to go beyond data collection to invest in projects to improve air quality.

Progress begins with knowledge, data and understanding, said Glory Dolphin Hammes, chief executive officer of IQAir.

“Overall, we need to do what we can to reduce the sources of air pollution,” she said. “There needs to be a concrete plan.”