How to Use the AirNow Tool

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Brian Lehrer: It's The Brian Lehrer Show on WNYC. Good morning again, everyone. Well, it's another day with air quality alerts in effect for parts of the Greater New York area, but that doesn't mean the air quality is bad at all times in all places in our region. Just before the show, the interactive website AirNow.gov showed only a moderate amount of PM 2.5, the wildfire smoke particulates, and ozone levels down around 20 regionwide, which is very good.

Confused yet? Many people are. It gets more confusing when you look at variations within our neighborhoods, and based on where the air quality monitors are on the AirNow map compared to the color-coded danger and safety zones. I'm looking right now, for example, since we were just talking about Jersey, I'll stay there in the Hoboken, Jersey City region just on the other side of the tunnel from Lower Manhattan. I'm seeing a reading of 57-- I'm sorry, 63, which puts it in the moderately unhealthy category. Little bit south in Bayonne the AQI is only 18, which puts it in the very good air quality zone. Are the variations really that local?

We've been getting a lot of caller questions about this new to New York phenomenon of wildfire smoke as part of the everyday weather check. What does the air quality index actually measure? How do I read the AirNow.gov map that a lot of people are now turning to? How hyper-locally does the AQI vary, and can I see that on AirNow? Was the air often unhealthy in the summer because of ozone not wildfire smoke in past years, but we just never paid attention as much.

Listeners, we're going to try to get you lots of answers now. In fact, if you want to, you can click over to AirNow.gov right now yourself and follow along, fire up the map, as we welcome two special guests to answer as many of your questions as we can. With us now are both the New York State Health Commissioner Dr. James McDonald and the Environmental Conservation Commissioner Basil Seggos. Commissioner McDonald, Commissioner Seggos thanks so much for joining us together today. Welcome to WNYC.

Basil Seggos: Thanks, Brian. Great to be back.

James McDonald: Brian, thank you for inviting me.

Brian Lehrer: Listeners, your calls and text message questions welcome here about how to read the AirNow.gov map or other questions relating to our fluctuating air quality, 212-433-WNYC, 212-433-9692. Commissioner McDonald, looking at the numbers and colors on the map just to give people a basic refresher, green is good air quality, corresponding to an air quality index number below 50. Above 50, it goes from good to moderate or green to yellow. At 100 it becomes orange or unhealthy for sensitive groups, and then deeper shades of red on up from there.

We actually hit 400 on the air quality index, as you know, back on that eerie sci-fi sky day of June 7th. Commissioner McDonald, do the numbers on the scale measure something in particular? What is an AQI of a 100? A 100 what?

James McDonald: Yes, Brian, that's great. I think it's wonderful that you ask it is a 100 what. It's funny. I remember when they used to have commercials about soap. It was 99.4% pure. We used to say 99.4% pure of what. Five things come to mind when you think about air quality. Fine particulate matter, that's the PM 2.5 we talk about. You talked about ground-level ozone. That's the second thing that I think comes to mind. Carbon monoxide is the third thing that comes to mind. Sulfur dioxide, which if you've been around a volcano, you know what sulfur dioxide smells like. Nitrogen dioxide is the fifth thing. It's really a composite score of those five things that are measured there.

Brian Lehrer: Commissioner Seggos, what is the interactive AirNow.gov map actually? Who makes it, and how do you intend for the general public to use it?

Basil Seggos: Great question. Well, we're lucky to have it. I think we all realized just how important it is to have data at our fingertips make personal decisions. New York State has 54 monitoring stations around the state. We take regular readings throughout the day, 365 days a year. All of that information, all that data then gets sent to the EPA, which then [unintelligible 00:04:58] AirNow.gov, gets translated into the color codes that you referenced at the outset.

That's true in most states. There's localized monitoring networks. As we saw these smoke plumes move across the upper Midwest, Michigan into New Jersey, Pennsylvania, and then, of course, New York, that was all based on local monitoring. EPA did a good thing for the public by spending those dollars and putting it into an app that was super easy to use for all of us.

Brian Lehrer: You said there are 54 monitoring stations around New York State. There are more counties than that in New York State. Is that enough to get a meaningful reading?

Basil Seggos: It is. We have the 54 monitoring stations. They're clustered around developed areas. You think about some of the more remote areas in Upstate New York where you've got multiple counties. In the Adirondacks, for example, we'll have a couple. Down in New York City, we have more than a couple. In fact, several in the five boroughs.

Then we're able to use that to generate trend lines. We understand where the smoke is coming, what the concentrations are, if we're talking about PM2.5, and that enables us to create these contours that are visual in nature, and ultimately translate that into this map system, which then can help us to alert the public as to changing conditions.

Again, it isn't hyperlocal at the block and lot level. It is really a more borough-wide look at it. We can do incredible things with the science we have at our fingertips to alert the public as to changing conditions and what they should do about it.

Brian Lehrer: As I look at the map, and there are dots where the monitors appear to be, but I don't totally get the placement of them, so I hope I'm describing this correctly, but for example, there seem to be monitors in Harlem and Washington Heights in Upper Manhattan, but none in Manhattan below that. Do you know if that's the case?

Basil Seggos: Well, we have monitoring stations in Manhattan. They're not always monitoring for the particulate matters, Ozone, PM10. We have other monitors midtown that reflect carbon in the air as well. Of course, you have right across the city in New Jersey, you have Jersey City and Union City, where you have some monitors as well. That is an early indicator. We know the wind is generally coming from the west, so that when we see those monitoring stations in other states, that helps us to frame our alerts here in New York State.

Brian Lehrer: Commissioner McDonald, when I see very different numbers on some of those maps that are near each other like the Jersey City map-- The Jersey City monitor seems to be showing 63 right now, which puts it in the yellow or moderately unhealthy range, but down around Bayonne-- maybe that's the Union City map that Commissioner Seggos just referred to, but it looks to me like Bayonne the way it's displaying, it's only 18. That's very, very good air quality and so much different from Jersey City, which is very close. Could they be that different that close? Do the conditions vary like that from town to town, or I could give you other examples that are within the Bronx, for example?

James McDonald: I think that's one of the key things is conditions do vary as you go throughout the state. One of the things I like about the AirNow app is I can put multiple places in there. Because I'm the commissioner of the entire State of New York, I have a whole bunch of sites in my AirNow app, so I can see the whole state at a glance. As you're going from parts throughout the state, you can say, "Well, what's my personal health risk here?"

One of the things I think about with this event, and I think back to June 7th, you're talking about the day where the sky looked weird, we had tools. It was nice to have the AirNow app right there to go. A lot of people, like myself, have been looking at this through our weather app for, quite frankly, a long period of time, but I think this gets to the point of-- I think one of the things we're seeing now that we do is--

I did this this morning. My wife and I were going to go for a walk. We looked at the air in the Albany area, saw it was moderate. We're pretty healthy people, so we went for a lovely walk this morning. If the air wasn't so good, we probably would have done something inside like rowing. Right now what I'm doing when I start my day, I look at the air quality, and then make a decision about, "Am I going to go outside? What am I going to do?"

Brian Lehrer: Before when you said that the blocks of color, if I heard you right, are an amalgam of all the pollutants, is that how I should look at it? I'll give you some of those Bronx numbers that I referred to in the East Gun Hill Road area. I've got my map set to PM2.5 which are the wildfire smoke particulates. It says 27 for that part of the Bronx. Very good. Down a little bit further, still in the Bronx, I see 56 and 59 on two monitors that are fairly close to each other, so that would be much worse in a very close-to-each-other set of monitors. Again, I've got my map set to PM2.5, the wildfire smoke particulates.

Do those numbers reflect just the wildfire smoke if I have my map set that way, or is that some amalgam or cumulative number of all the pollutants?

James McDonald: Yes, so it's a composite number so it pulls everything in there. One of the things you'll see there, of the top five things I mentioned, that's what's in there. One of the things you'll also see is, right now, if you look at just New York City in general, PM2.5 is the primary pollutant in New York City right now. Your ozone layer and your PM10 layers are both good. Now, I think this is a lot of information for folks to quite frankly digest on a Thursday morning. There's numbers everywhere.

The way I look at this is you can get the granularity if you want to, but really what I look at is this, I look at the composite number and I make a decision because really when you look right down to it, for the vast majority of us, moderate air quality, the yellow, it's not going to be an issue for the vast majority of us. It's the group that is unusually sensitive to air pollution that are going to worry about this and that's where people need to look at their own personal health risk and make a decision for themselves.

If I'm going to go outside, should I consider wearing an N95 mask because this is a tool I have? I have some tools to use here. I think that's where the public has some tools to successfully navigate what we have in front of us right now.

Basil Seggos: Brian, I'll add one thing.

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead.

Basil Seggos: Since you've referenced some of the placement of these monitors, and I think the decisions that people are making based on the data that's online, we did see, frankly, a gap in our ability to do effective policy work when it came to decision making on local pollution sources and last year launched a hyperlocal monitoring program based on, actually, cars that were being driven around taking real-time monitoring.

That's happening right now. This is not part of the EPA system. It's not part of the DEC system traditionally. We're trying to get that hyperlocal level. That'll begin to reflect the changes in pollution, hyperlocal pollution sources as well as all of these transboundary pollution sources that we're all worried about from this summer.

Brian Lehrer: Well, can we get air pollution monitors now that people are paying attention to these numbers and are concerned about them for our homes? You know how you have thermometers that will tell you the temperature inside your home and just outside your home? Are there portable personal AQI monitors that will tell you the AQI just outside your window and for that matter inside your house?

Basil Seggos: There are. There are actually a ton of companies making these things now. Believe me, in the last month, I've gotten LinkedIn requests from dozens of these companies. Yes, I think you can buy these devices. I honestly couldn't tell you which ones are effective and which ones are not. Our monitors are EPA approved. They're regularly maintained. They are at the greatest technology possible.

I think if you're going to buy a device that is going to give you some kind of a look as to your indoor air quality or outdoor air quality on your patio, just be aware that you may not be buying state-of-the-art technology, you might be buying something that's really a black box and it's important to consult with certainly AirNow.gov and some of the larger government-approved systems.

Brian Lehrer: If you're just joining us listeners, we're talking about air quality in the Greater New York, New Jersey area, and how to read that AirNow.gov map and the data points on that map that a lot of people are turning to now with our special guests, both the New York State Health Commissioner, Dr. James McDonald and the New York State Environmental Conservation Commissioner, Basil Seggos. Barbara in the Bronx, you're on WNYC. Hi, Barbara.

Barbara: Hi. The problem is I called in and I wasn't listening to the show so I don't know what you covered.

Brian Lehrer: That's okay. Ask your question and we'll tell you if you're just being redundant. [chuckles]

Barbara: Okay. All right. Did you talk about the sensors that are all around the city in addition to the monitors?

Brian Lehrer: You're making a distinction between sensors and monitors?

Barbara: Yes, the smoke sensors, when you push smoke on AirNow, it takes you to a map that has little boxes on it. It could be closer to your home. I use the one in Riverdale because there's nothing exactly where I am in the Northwest Bronx.

Brian Lehrer: Commissioner Seggos, you want to make that distinction between sensors and monitors?

Basil Seggos: Yes, I think I can talk about that. The monitors are the devices we use to make regulatory decisions based on air quality conditions through our regulatory program that's EPA-approved. The sensors themselves, these are local sensors that can be deployed and we will draw upon that for our knowledge of conditions. Quite often, these sensors are used when you have local-- a fire, for example, local fire when you have extreme traffic backups.

That can help inform local decision-making, but from a regulatory perspective, from an air quality perspective, when we're talking about public health, we're primarily using these monitors, which we know work. They're state of the art and they're deployed to give us that sense of changing conditions.

Brian Lehrer: Dr. McDonald, you talked about sensitive people or highly sensitive people. I've seen from different weather services, various kinds of language around that with different AQI numbers on different days, and sometimes it says, "If you're a sensitive individual or an individual at an at-risk group, maybe you should consider staying indoors today." Then sometimes it says, very sensitive individuals, I've seen, "Only if you're an extremely sensitive individual, should you stay indoors or make sure to wear an N95 mask or avoid strenuous exercise."

For you as the health commissioner, how do I know if I'm a sensitive individual? I know we've heard children because they have developing lungs, can be sensitive, but if I'm an otherwise healthy three-year-old and I'm not having immediate symptoms from being out in the air, what should I do? If I'm an otherwise healthy 70-year-old and I'm not having symptoms, but I see, oh, senior citizens, what should I do? Give advice to that hypothetical 3-year-old or their parents and that hypothetical 70-year-old.

James McDonald: Yes. I think the main thing is listen to your body. One of the things about your body's early warning system, if you're coughing, your body is telling you something. If you're coughing, your body is saying, "Let's go inside, or let's put on N95 mask." I think that's one way to think about that, whether you're 3 years old or 70 years old. The 3-year-old and 70-year-old are different though. I don't know that you really wanted to hear about the Bernoulli's principle this early on a Thursday morning, but why not, right?

Brian Lehrer: I do. I do. I really do.

James McDonald: When you're a three-year-old, you increase the resistance to the fourth power when you have smaller airways. Babies, little guys have smaller airways. People with smaller airways don't do well with inflammation. I've been a pediatrician for 33 years. I've heard a lot of kids wheeze in my career. Kids don't do well when their airways are inflamed. When they get to the higher-- the number of bad air, the more the air gets worse, the more likely you're going to inflame someone's air. When you're 70 years old-

Brian Lehrer: Go ahead.

James McDonald: -it's different, right? You're just a [unintelligible 00:18:21]. You have a body that's just been weathered a lot of life. You might be a little bit more triggered to things. If you're a smoker, it's harder on you. If you have asthma, it's much harder on you. I feel like you're right, the language about sensitiveness, it's a little bit vague. What we're really trying to identify, look, if you have lung disease, you have asthma, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, emphysema, someone has heart disease, you're higher risk.

What higher risk means is when you see bad air, you might notice a difference. June 7th, for example, which remembers how bad the air was, not everybody got sick. We saw a slight increase in New York City, and we saw an increase to the rest of the state. Some people got sick but it was primarily people who were affected by that were people with asthma. I think that underlines what the threat is there. I hope that helps.

Brian Lehrer: It helps, but part of my question is for people who don't have symptoms, how much they should restrict their activities based on the AQI? I'm thinking of skin cancer as an analogy. You could go out on a cloudy day and not get a sunburn, but if you're not wearing a good sunscreen, you may still be accumulating UV rays on your skin that can eventually, if you have enough, result in skin cancer. You're not getting the sunburn but you're still at risk. Is there something like that with our lungs and these high AQI days?

James McDonald: Yes, and I think that's exactly an important point, which you're talking about dose and response. In other words, you're right. Sunscreen is a great example. The UV index matters too, When you really think about air quality, we obviously want our air quality to be optimal every day we live here. As you get more and more worse air quality, over time, there's a cumulative effect of that. Now, for the vast majority of people, if the air quality is under 100, we're not going to notice it at all. You're going to go do the things, you're going to go outside, you're going to run, you're going to play, you're going to live your life, and that's great but when it starts getting over a 100, this is when you see more and more people will start to notice changes there.

Your point is, is really, I think, important, which is that this is why we talk about climate change, we really are concerned about climate change for so many, many reasons, but this is really one of them, which is that it's in everyone's best interest planet-wide to have good air all over the place.

Brian Lehrer: Florence in Manhattan, you're on WNYC. Hi, Florence.

Florence: Hi. I use AirNow on a regular basis, but I forget how I learned about a website called IQAir in New York City. I think I read that one uses an average and the other does not use an average. Anyway, I wonder what he has to say about IQAir. They don't necessarily-

Brian Lehrer: Always degrade? Yes. Commissioner Seggos, familiar with that?

Basil Seggos: Yes, look, the AirNow.gov is based on the federal standards. The federal standards meaning it's an average base standard over the course of an hour, the standard being a 24-hour exposure. You are talking about average, this is the national standard, by the way, which is what we handle here in New York State so when we're talking about our decision-making, regulatory decision-making, and our alerts that we send to the public, we're basing it on those expected hourly forecasts.

When we put those out, though, we're pretty clear that you should expect spikes. Averages, of course, are the average of the low and the high, and I think as we saw even last week and certainly into the early part of June, you had high averages, but you also had high spikes. What we've been doing here in New York is, to the greatest extent possible, passing that information along that there's a wave of PM or ozone coming, you need to take precautions, you need to expect the spikes, and consult as much of the information as possible.

IQAir, I don't use it as much. My team may use it to some degree, but we know that using the larger air monitoring program that we have in New York gives us a sense, really, where the trend lines are and what steps the public is going to need to take.

Brian Lehrer: You mentioned ground-level ozone, that's what is forecast to be bad today. It wasn't bad in the morning, but it's expected to be bad as the day goes on. The last time I checked was before the show, so maybe it's already getting into the unhealthy range. What happens, Commissioner Seggos, when it combines with high levels of particulate matter that might still be around from the wildfire smoke?

Basil Seggos: Well, there certainly is a correlation. Ground-level ozone primarily is the result of a chemical reaction between nitrogen oxides and other organic compounds, such as the burning of petroleum. You think about what comes out of the back of cars and power plants, chemical plants, and so forth. When that is at the ground level and the sun starts shining, that's when ozone spikes. That's when we put out the alerts. Today, you see pretty decent ozone downstate New York City, but you see a little higher levels Upstate of the Hudson Valley.

Of course, if you're talking about those conditions and the presence of particulate matter from smoke, that's when we'll put out multiple alerts, and really the same advice would hold true. If you're in those ranges, limit your outdoor activities, take the precaution you need to take as Dr. McDonald talked about and go back to our website as often as possible, the AirNow.gov website as often as possible, just to see how those levels are changing over time.

Brian Lehrer: You said something that might be counterintuitive to a lot of people, which is that the ozone levels are expected to be better in New York City today than in the Hudson Valley. Why would the city have better air than the country, if we can call parts of the Hudson Valley the country?

Basil Seggos: Well, it'll be a combination of factors. Is the air moving quickly enough? Is there enough wind to push the air out? In the Hudson Valley today, check with our meteorologist, you don't have as much air moving through as you do in the five boroughs, so that'll have a significant impact on it and if you've got these localized emission sources, you can have localized air pollution problems, and that's definitely the case with ozone today. That's not always the case, of course.

Brian Lehrer: Dr. McDonald, last question. What about chronic inequality in all the regards we've been talking about, really mostly ozone because the wildfire smoke is more of a new phenomenon. For you as the health commissioner, and you were talking about wheezing kids and asthma before there are areas that we could cite as asthma alleys, maybe along the Cross Bronx Expressway neighborhoods, other places. How much is air pollution not a function of changing-- of air pollution that affects people's lungs, not a function of changing weather patterns, but a function of chronic conditions?

James McDonald: You raised the whole health disparity question in this regard because we're not all affected the same way. In other words, if you're someone who has chronic disease because of other reasons, adverse social determinants of health, this gets the health equity issues here. One of the things I worry about as health commissioner is how do I optimize everyone's social determinants of health, in other words, a safe place to live, work, and play.

How to make sure that everybody has good health equity because, quite frankly, these types of things where we're all exposed to the same time to bad air, but we don't all have the same risk and that gets back to our underlying personal health risk, and so much of that, Brian, is determined by our social determinants of health, and these things do contribute to health disparities, which worry me.

Brian Lehrer: There we leave it with the New York State health commissioner, Dr. James McDonald, and the New York State Environmental Conservation Commissioner, Basil Seggos. Thank you for all the information on how to use the AirNow.gov map and other things about the air quality this summer. Thank you so much.

Basil Seggos: Thank you, Brian.

James McDonald: Thank you.

 

 

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