LOUISVILLE, Ky. —
An air quality sensor was installed Friday in the city's newest park as part of the Louisville Metro Air Pollution Control District’s (ACPD) ongoing effort to increase public awareness of air quality issues and help the public reduce exposure to certain pollutants.
The APCD partnered with the Parks Alliance of Louisville, Louisville Parks and Recreation and Louisville Metro Technology Services to install the sensor at Alberta O. Jones Park near the playground.
For decades, west Louisville neighborhoods have been dealing with poor air quality, and last year the APCD received a $1 million grant from the EPA to conduct an air monitoring study throughout west Louisville over the next three years.
Results of the study will help develop policies to reduce air pollution exposure and help doctors improve treatment options.
“People who live in the neighborhoods surrounding Alberta O. Jones Park are keenly interested in air quality and how it impacts their health and quality of life,” said Brooke Pardue, CEO of the Parks Alliance of Louisville. “We are thrilled to partner with APCD to provide the community with a real-time gauge they can check at any time at this ‘people-powered park’.”
The new sensor measures fine particle pollution and provides live air quality conditions to the US EPA’s AirNow Fire and Smoke Map, which displays fine particle pollution concentrations from sensors and monitors throughout the country.
This comes just months after the American Lung Association released its annual State of the Air report in April that ranked the Louisville metro area the 39th-worst in the United States for ozone pollution and 64th-worst for short-term particle pollution. Both rankings are worse than last year.
“Unfortunately, more than 131 million people still live in places with unhealthy levels of air pollution, and Louisville still has work to do,” said Shannon Baker, advocacy director for the Lung Association. “Climate change is making air pollution more likely to form and more difficult to clean up, so there are actions we can and must take to improve air quality, including calling on EPA to set long-overdue stronger national limits on ozone pollution.”
Ozone "smog" is the air pollutant that affects the largest number of people in the U.S. Louisville's ranking of the 39th-worst was based on the worst county in the area in terms of pollution, Jefferson County, and the number of “unhealthy” days per year.
The citywide Air Quality Index and other data from APCD's air monitoring network can be found here.
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