ON EARTH DAY, AG
HEALEY JOINS COMMUNITY LEADERS TO ANNOUNCE NEW SPRINGFIELD AIR QUALITY
MONITORING PROJECT
AG’s Office
Provides Funding for Air Quality Monitors Across Nation’s Asthma Capital;
Plants Trees with Office Staff in Adams Park
BOSTON – On Earth Day,
Attorney General Maura Healey joined local elected officials and community
leaders in Springfield to launch a new collaborative air quality monitoring
project to measure air pollution levels and provide data to inform public
health responses in the city known as having the highest rates of asthma in the
country.
Today’s announcement was made at an event in Adams Park in Springfield and
is part of AG Healey’s work to prioritize protecting public health in
environmental justice communities in Massachusetts. AG Healey also joined
members of her Environmental Protection Division to plant trees – two Musashino
Zelkova and three Heritage River Birch – in the
park.
“For far too long, injustices embedded in environmental
and other policies have forced our most vulnerable residents in communities
like Springfield to breath polluted air and suffer serious public health
consequences,” AG Healey said. “This project will help us address
inequities by giving residents the tools they need to monitor pollution in
their neighborhoods and protect their health. I want to thank all of our
partners in this work to make Springfield a greener and healthier place to be.”
The air
monitoring project will result in the installation of 80 air quality sensors
across Springfield to collect data on pollution hotspots and inform public
health measures. Specifically, the project includes 40 long-term sensors that
will collect information on the concentrations of particulate matter and ozone
and 40 short-term sensors that will track information on toxic air contaminants
in the city. This project is being run and funded by the AG’s Office in
collaboration with the City of Springfield, Yale University, the Public Health
Institute of Western Massachusetts, Bay State Health, ReGreen Springfield, and
other community organizations and members.
The
sensors are expected to be installed in early June. The location of the sensors
will be determined by feedback from community members with the goal of having
sensors placed around the city, including several potential locations on the
outside of school and municipal buildings and other community institutions like
Bay State Health. This effort will significantly expand the air quality
monitoring network in Springfield, a city in which nearly one in five children
have asthma, leading it to be ranked the “asthma capital” of the country by the Asthma
and Allergy Foundation of America. The project will also help address concerns
around ozone, a pollutant that puts the health of residents, especially infants
and those with asthma at risk.
“In acknowledgement of Earth Day, Executive Director of Parks, Buildings,
and Recreation Management Patrick Sullivan and I continue our commitment to
making the City of Springfield energy and environmentally effective and
efficient,” said Mayor Domenic J. Sarno. “This year will mark 35 years
Springfield has been designated as a Tree City USA by the Arbor Day Foundation.
Thanks to our Parks Department, especially our Forestry Division and City
Forester Alex Sherman, Springfield was able to plant over 400 trees throughout
the City in 2020, which represented a 50 percent increase over the prior year.
We look forward to continuing our tree planting operations this year. I want to
thank Attorney General Maura Healey and her staff for partnering with the City
of Springfield and other community stakeholders on this new air quality
monitoring project. This project supports my administration’s ongoing green
initiatives to improving our air quality and protecting our
environment.”
“Poor air quality is a long-standing issue in the
Greater Springfield Area,” said Dr. Krystal Pollitt Assistant Professor of
Environmental Health Science at Yale University School of Public Health.
“The generous support from AG Healey to establish an air sensor network across
the region represents an important step in making air quality information more
accessible to the community. I am excited by the long-term opportunities
presented by this air sensor network to enhance residents’ understanding of air
pollution, the health implications, and actions they can take to prevent the
adverse effects of poor air quality.”
“We are proud of the collaboration between the Attorney General’s
Office, the City of Springfield, resident advisors from the Pioneer Valley
Asthma and Live Well Springfield Coalitions, Yale University researchers and
environmental organizations like ReGreen Springfield and Earthwatch,” said Sarita
Hudson, Director of Programs and Development for the Public Health Institute of
Western Massachusetts and the Pioneer Valley Asthma Coalition. “This
project prioritizes community involvement by engaging community residents in
determining where to locate the sensors, how to share the data with residents,
and how to take action to avoid exposures. This project will allow us to
collect real-time data to help us understand the air quality in
Springfield and guide us in taking action to make Springfield a more
resilient community where everyone has clean air to breathe.
“ReGreen Springfield is excited to be part
of this important initiative, which will provide data that can be used to help
develop strategies to make our neighborhoods healthier and more resilient,”
said David Bloniarz, President of ReGreen Springfield. “This initiative
represents a partnership of environmental agencies, community residents,
non-profit organizations and scientific researchers, who are all working to
make Springfield a better place to live for our residents. We know that this
will be a ‘game changer’ as we continue our efforts to improve environmental
and public health across the city.”
Data collected from the sensors will be analyzed by Yale University and the
Public Health Institute of Western Massachusetts and published in a report. In
addition, a website will be launched at the end of June to allow residents to
view minute-by-minute information on the air quality in their neighborhoods and
take the necessary precautions to protect themselves from exposure. The
information will also be used to inform the enforcement work of the AG’s
Environmental Protection Division, which has prioritized investigations and
cases environmental justice communities that have been overburdened for decades
with pollution from industrial facilities, power plants, highways, and other
pollution sources.
Today’s announcement implements one of the recommendations made in a brief the AG’s Office released in May 2020 detailing the
environmental factors that compound the COVID-19 pandemic’s disparate impact on
communities of color in Massachusetts. The brief outlined steps the state should take to address the
longstanding impact of environmental injustice on families, including the
installation of a robust network of air quality monitors to better track hot
spots of particle pollution within vulnerable neighborhoods. The brief
highlighted a study by the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health that
linked long term exposure to fine particulate matter, which will soon be
measured by the sensors in Springfield, and increased rates of COVID-19 cases
and deaths.
The AG’s
Office challenged many of the Trump Administration’s failures to strengthen
federal standards for air quality and other rollbacks of air quality
protections, including through lawsuits to challenge weak air quality standards for particulate
matter and ozone. On its first day in office, the Biden Administration issued
its “Executive Order on Protecting Public Health and the Environment and
Restoring Science to Tackle the Climate Crisis,” which calls for federal
agencies to “advance environmental justice,” and to review and potentially
reverse the Trump Administration’s environmental rollbacks.
Earlier this month, more than 20 environmental and public health
organizations including the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America sent a letter to President Biden urging the administration to make
investments to address air pollution and climate change. The letter
specifically called for the expansion and modernization of the country’s air
quality monitoring system, noting that nearly half of the country’s population
lives in a county with failing grades for ozone pollution or particulate matter
like Springfield.
This project is being overseen for the AG’s Office by Attorney Emily Mitchell,
Special Assistant Attorney General Nora Chorover, and Division Chief Betsy
Harper, all of AG Healey’s Environmental Protection Division.
