In an effort to improve the county’s air quality, the Davis County Health Department has partnered with Tellus Network Sensor Solutions for the purchase and installation of air quality monitors and the development of an air quality map on the county website. The sensors are designed to measure key air pollutants, such as PM2.5, MP10, Nitrogen Oxides (NOx) and Ozone (O3).

“The Tellus monitors that we purchased are to build out our air monitoring network in Davis County,” said Randy Olson, Environmental Health Division Deputy Director. “Staff has installed 24 monitors across the county, 21 AirU Pro monitors and 3 AirU+monitors.”

A description of the two monitors is as follows:

AirU Pro Monitor – The AirU Pro Monitor uses advanced sensors to measure particulate matter (PM1, PM2.5, PM10), gases, temperature, humidity and location data in real time.

AirU+ Monitor – The AirU+ Quality Monitor tracks, stores and visualizes PM2.5 (particulate) matter, temperature and relative humidity in real-time.

“The monitors connect within a minute after installation,” said Olson. “It’s a really fast connection and then the data is just constantly updating as it’s taking readings and uploading to the network.”

The other big benefit of these monitors is that they connect to the online map, he said. “It presents a heat map where you can see wherever you are within Davis County, what the projected air quality is in real time.”

Olson said the county has the issue of PM2.5 which are the inversions, said Olson. “Davis County is right in the middle of that. We get really bad inversions. So that is the main pollutant that we are measuring with these monitors.”

“I think one of our goals obviously as public health is the well-being of our community,” said Davis County Health Department Director, Brian Hatch. “Knowledge is power and that’s what this is intended to do.”

Hatch said they’ve been able to know what’s happening in the community by the monitors that they have from the state, etc. “But right where you live often there are gaps in what’s happening. If I live in northern Davis County, clear to the north, and the monitors are clear in the south, what does that mean? It’s very different from what’s happening where you are.”

So what this provides is real, localized information where people can wake up that morning, log in and go to the department’s website and look to see what the real-time air monitoring is or what’s happening in their area, he said. “That way you can make an informed decision whether your child has asthma or not. Hey, do you want to do something different or say ‘I’m not going to drive today because it’s bad air.’”

Nothing more than that right now is to provide that ability for the public to be informed, said Hatch. “That’s the biggest first step for anybody. Not to always be told but for them to know that they have a responsibility to their personal health also and this gives them that ability."

Air quality is a big issue, he said. “Especially if you have some of these underlying conditions like asthma, it can trigger very unhealthy situations for individuals. A healthy person can do a little bit more but this still informs you. If it goes bright red out there, you’re going to feel the effects.”

Hatch said as they roll this out they’re hoping to enlarge the network of monitoring in the county. “This is not all just Davis County, it is also Salt Lake County that has some of this. We have data along the Wasatch Front and so all of this information is better informing not just our county, but us as a region also.” λ