Some exciting news from the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality. Check out the news release below and remember to download the Air Quality Index mobile app and to bookmark the webpage before wildfire season.
Statewide, OR – A tool that
Oregonians use to gauge air quality conditions where they live, work and play –
one that many Oregonians see as critical during wildfire season -- has gotten a
major overhaul.
Upgrades to the Oregon Department
of Environmental Quality’s Air Quality Index, a
color-coded tool that reports how clean the air is at over 37 monitors around
the state and provides information on potential health risks, make the system more reliable. The new index also puts more data
at users’ fingertips allowing them to view weather data, generate reports using
historical data and more.
A mobile app is also now available
for smart phones. Simply search for OregonAir in your app store.
“The
index is a valuable tool for the public year round and it is particularly
useful during wildfires that create large amounts of smoke – as we all saw last
year,” said Brian Boling, DEQ’s
Laboratory and Environmental Assessment Division Manager.
“Last year almost half a million visitors used
the Air Quality Index,” Boling said, noting the system was last upgraded five
years ago. “We know those users rely on the information the index provides when
they are making plans to be outdoors, particularly during the summer, and we
want to make sure this information is easy to access that’s why we’re so glad
to add a mobile app this year.”
During the 2017 wildfire season, DEQ’s Air
Quality Index saw record web traffic. All of the top five most-viewed pages on
DEQ’s website in 2017 were about air quality accounting for almost 1.3 million
page views. The Air Quality Index briefly crashed a number of times in August
and September 2017 because of heavy traffic. (Oregon air quality information
was also available on EPA’s AirNow website and on the Oregon Smoke Blog, and in
Lane County on the Lane Regional Air Protection Agency.)
In addition to being more reliable, the new Air Quality Index will
have additional features:
o
Meteorological data
o
Downloadable historical data
o
Modernized web interface
o
Tools available to analyze data
o
Lane Regional Air Protection Agency data
The new software used for the Air Quality Index also reconciles
differences between DEQ’s Air Quality Index and EPA’s AirNow site that could
result in users seeing slightly different readings on the two sites.
Information, including video tutorials and a link to the new Air
Quality Index, can be found at http://www.oregon.gov/deq/aq/Pages/aqi.aspx
Oregon’s index is based on three pollutants
regulated by the federal Clean Air Act: ground-level ozone, particle pollution
and nitrogen dioxide.
Air pollution can be a
particular concern to the elderly, children and those with respiratory
conditions, but high levels of pollution can affect everyone. The higher the
value on the Air Quality Index, the greater the level of air pollution and the
greater the health concern. For example, a value of 50 or below represents good
air quality with little potential to affect even those with respiratory
conditions, while a value over 300 represents hazardous air quality and is
likely to affect even healthy individuals.