The power of “data to the people” for cleaner air

Technology is disrupting every sector of our economy, but it’s also giving us new ways to solve the most pressing environmental problems that affect our communities.

From citizen scientists with hand-held air quality monitors, to Google Street View cars mapping pollution hotspots across cities, getting data into the right people’s hands is crucial to protecting our health.

New York, NY

As in many cities, New York residents suffer from respiratory diseases and other serious health problems caused by soot in the air they breathe. So in 2007, Environmental Defense Fund sent a few dozen volunteers to the city to examine the problem.

The volunteers wore heavy backpacks with instruments that measure air pollutants at street level, to supplement data gathered from rooftop monitors. Although our initial focus was the city’s vehicle exhaust, we uncovered a bigger problem — 10,000 buildings burning dirty, heavy heating oils. Citizens of New York used the data to persuade city officials that street-level monitoring tracked what people were actually breathing. This led to the city installing 150 street-level monitors and requiring buildings to phase out the sludge-like oil.

In 2012, we helped the city launch NYC Clean Heat, a program that helps buildings switch to cleaner heating fuels in cost-effective ways. We also partnered with the city to convene a broad coalition of city officials, nonprofits and banks, shaping the $100 million financing program that helped building owners and managers make the transition.

More than 6,000 buildings converted to cleaner heating fuels since 2008, and today, New Yorkers are breathing the cleanest air in 50 years. The city estimates that in addition to reducing pollution, buildings that switched to cleaner fuels have reduced citywide greenhouse gas emissions by approximately 800,000 metric tons. New York State’s Westchester County is now following the city’s lead.

Oakland, CA

West Oakland is disproportionately burdened with air pollution. It is estimated that levels of diesel pollution in West Oakland are almost three times the average in the greater Bay area, contributing to an elevated risk of cancer and so in 2015, we began mapping air pollution with Google Earth Outreach arranging for sensor-equipped Street View cars to traverse Oakland while mapping black carbon, nitric oxide and nitrogen dioxide to produce a vivid picture of air pollution hotspots block by block.

What we found was alarming. In some areas, air pollution levels were eight times higher than in others. What’s more, scientists were able to connect pollution along a certain block to an adjacent industrial facility — just the kind of detailed information that can help communities deal effectively with pollution.

A community action plan is being developed using the trove of data to create a model plan for reducing pollution exposure in West Oakland under the state’s local air pollution law, AB 617. All this is now helping inform the Port and City of Oakland’s truck management plan to make sure it alleviates congestion and traffic through residential streets as the port expands.

Houston, TX

Bridgette Murray, a retired nurse and founder of the nonprofit Achieving Community Tasks Successfully, lives in the predominantly African American neighborhood of Pleasantville on Houston’s east side. Metal recyclers, salvage yards and an interstate push hard against the neighborhood, proof and product of the city’s light-on-regulations approach to land use. Trains and trucks rumble through the area day and night, and it can be difficult to breathe.

Believing that more and better data was needed to empower her community, Murray started working with EDF in 2017 to better understand Pleasantville’s air pollution and its associated harmful health effects. It turned out that the closest monitor to the community was some two miles away, making it difficult to measure pollution there. Recently, EDF began working with Houston-based Achieving Community Tasks Successfully (ACTS) and Texas Southern University to install one or more community owned monitors in the area. Local residents will work with project partners to determine goals, where to place the equipment and how to maintain it.

Other Houston projects that build on this and our Oakland work include:

- Testing a cost-effective, scalable model for mapping air pollution using municipal vehicles in partnership with telematics company GeoTab, TDE Technologies and the city of Houston.

- Identifying hotspots for air pollution using Google Street View cars outfitted with high-resolution sensors, as we did in Oakland.

- Deploying Entanglement Technologies’ mobile sensors and analyzer to measure air pollution like benzene in real time in Houston neighborhoods following Hurricane Harvey.

In January, 2019, the mapping project took another step forward. The Mayor of London, EDF, C40 (an international consortium of 90 cities tackling climate change) and a host of partners launched Breathe London, an ambitious project that will measure and map Londoners’ daily exposure to air pollution using a network of advanced air pollution sensors deployed across the city. (WATCH: video on Breathe London.)

“Our goal is to reduce the health risks from exposure to air pollution, eliminate the health disparities and improve the health and prosperity of those who have suffered the burdens of air pollution for way too long,” said Elena Craft, EDF’s senior director for climate and health.

Nationwide

Local community groups aren’t the only ones using data to effect change. Led by co-founder and senior director Dominique Browning, Moms Clean Air Force Clean Air Force is a community of over 1 million moms and dads across the country who work on national and local policy issues, meeting with lawmakers at every level of government to build support for commonsense solutions to pollution.

Their report, Face to Face with Oil and Gas: Voices from the Front Lines of Oil and Gas Pollution, describes the health and climate impacts of oil and gas facilities, many of which are located right next to homes and schools. The report also tells the stories of seven women from across the country whose families live near these pollution sources.

Several of these women have gathered pollution data on their own, using technology like forward-looking infrared cameras to make invisible pollution visible, and tracking physical symptoms of family members like nosebleeds and dizzy spells. One woman profiled in the report noted that while every oil and gas employee is required to wear a hydrogen sulfide monitor, regular citizens have no such protection.

As the federal government continues its assault on clean air and water protections, evidence-based advocacy efforts like these become even more important. We expect communities everywhere to continue this innovative use of data — because experience shows that as citizens get a clearer picture of the pollution they’re breathing, they’re sure to say, “No, thanks!”

WATCH: Axios interview on air pollution by EDF President Fred Krupp here.

We are entering a new era of environmental innovation that is driving better alignment between technology and environmental goals — and results. #FourthWave