Research scientists at the state Department of Environmental Conservation have begun sifting through tens of million of data points for clues about what generates troubling levels of air pollution in some neighborhoods of Buffalo, Niagara Falls and the Town of Tonawanda.
The DEC spent the past year collecting air quality data daily from a 60-square-mile swath of Western New York, as part of an ambitious statewide effort to cut air pollution, particularly in densely populated urban areas near heavy traffic and industry.
A private company working on the project outfitted a hybrid Toyota Prius with sensors that measured air samples for a dozen pollutants, including black carbon, fine particulate matter, carbon dioxide, methane and greenhouse gases.
Drivers cruised in the specially equipped vehicle on all public roads within the Buffalo study zone at least 20 times over the course of a year, pretty much 24 hours per day, seven days per week, minus a few days off due to the December blizzard and hazardous air quality conditions from Canadian wildfires.
The Prius was easily identifiable, with the words “I measure air quality” marked on the door panels and an instrument box attached to the roof.
It could be seen driving almost any time of day or night in neighborhoods, collecting air data second by second so that researchers can track changing levels of pollution and get a better sense of the source of pollutants. As the car travels, outdoor air gets sucked into a device mounted on a window or rooftop and fed to sensoring equipment in the trunk, where it is checked for a range of pollutants. The data is then uploaded to the cloud for analysis.
The state’s $8 million air quality data collection project encompasses 10 regions of New York, including Buffalo-Tonawanda-Niagara Falls, and is among the most extensive hyperlocal community air monitoring efforts in the nation.
The data collection wrapped up in Western New York at the end of…
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