Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District (APCD) is offering to install approximately 150 air quality sensors at schools, government buildings, and nonprofit organizations throughout Santa Barbara County to measure fine particulate matter, known as PM2.5, from smoke, soot, and dust. Air quality sensors — such as PurpleAirsensors — are great for capturing neighborhood-level air quality conditions and complement APCD’s existing network of permanent air quality monitoring stations.
In June, APCD’s Board of Directors approved this program, paid for with grant funding. APCD’s priority is to install these sensors countywide in areas where there may be data gaps, especially in areas that are defined by the State of California as being disadvantaged and/or low-income. These new sensor installations will add to the approximately 50 PurpleAir sensors that APCD has installed around Santa Barbara County over the last few years. Air quality sensors installed as part of this program will provide air quality readings displayed on the EPA’s Fire & Smoke map: https://fire.airnow.gov/.
Low-cost air quality sensors do not meet federal, state, or local regulatory requirements for air quality monitoring, air quality warnings, or enforcement. Therefore, APCD cannot use sensor data for any enforcement or regulatory purposes.
Interested school, nonprofit, and government partners are encouraged to view the Letter of Expectations for partners and contact sensors@sbcapcd.org for questions. Interested partners can also submit their information via APCD’s online form. Due to limited resources, APCD will assess the countywide interest in this program and will likely not be able to install a sensor at every desired location.
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Santa Barbara County needs to ban wood burning (fireplaces, barbecues) and keep cruise ships out of our harbor. Strictly enforcing the ban on use of gasoline-powered leaf blowers within the City of Santa Barbara would also help in maintaining our air quality.
I carefully monitored the local air quality on the AirNow site during the recent brush fire in North County. I often found that the readings at the APCD’s permanent sensors were much different than the Purple Air sensors. The Purple Air sensors tended to have consistent readings with each other, taking differences in location into account. So the question is, “Is the APCD doing quality control, monitoring both the permanent sensors and the the Purple Air sensors for accuracy?” The objective would be to get accurate data from all sensors that the public can trust.