Washington's ambitious new mobile air monitoring study

The air you breathe when you step out your front door can sometimes be different than the air a few blocks away or across town. But how different? For the first time in Washington’s history, Ecology will be able to answer that in greater detail, thanks to a new study funded by the Climate Commitment Act (CCA). This winter, a fleet of specialized air monitoring vehicles will hit the streets in over 20 overburdened communities and participating Tribal Nations as part of a one-time, year-long High Resolution Mobile Monitoring study. When completed, we’ll gain an unprecedented understanding of local air quality conditions in these areas, allowing scientists and regulators to hunt for previously unknown hotspots of air pollution and gain perspective about where people may face greater health risks.

Washington already meets all national air quality standards and is home to one of the most robust air monitoring networks in the nation, thanks to funding from the state Legislature and close cooperation with federal, local, and Tribal partners. But not all monitors measure the same kind of pollutants and none of the permanent monitors are meant to be wheeled down the road. The existing network relies on stationary monitoring sites, which focus on community-level impacts of air pollution and measure pollutant trends over time. The vehicles for the mobile monitoring study, on the other hand, can be driven all around a given area, measuring air pollution continuously to deepen our knowledge. The mobile monitoring study will complement our existing air monitoring network and provide greater understanding of air quality variability on a detailed scale.

Ecology’s Air Quality Program Manager, Kathy Taylor, credits the Legislature for enabling this groundbreaking effort. “This is such an exciting opportunity for a science-based agency like Ecology, but it’s thanks to the state Legislature,” says Taylor. “Lawmakers understood the unique funding available through the CCA and created a pathway to capture a more detailed snapshot of air quality in Washington.”

What will be studied?

There’s no shortage of pollutants scientists could look for in a mobile air monitoring study. After all, there are nearly 200 hazardous air pollutants regulated by EPA and 430 toxic air pollutants regulated by Ecology. But the likelihood that many of those chemicals are in our air without a known source is extraordinarily low. Scientists conducting this mobile monitoring study worked with study contractor Spheros Environmental to review lists of pollution sources in Washington and analyze data from our monitoring network and previous studies to narrow the focus to a few dozen target compounds. Along with criteria air pollutants (like fine particulate matter (PM_2.5), ozone, or nitrogen dioxide) and greenhouse gases (like methane and carbon dioxide), the study will also track lesser monitored compounds like ultrafine particles and volatile organic compounds (VOCs) across the state.

Nate May, a project scientist at Ecology, is leading the mobile monitoring study. He brings years of hands-on experience building and maintaining air monitoring equipment. “This is a once in a lifetime opportunity for air monitoring scientists and communities,” says May. “The mobile monitoring study will provide high quality snapshots of air pollution that would otherwise be impossible to gather on this scale. This study should pay big dividends in better understanding local differences in the air we breathe.”

Which areas will be monitored?

As May and the contractor team wrote the monitoring plan, it was clear that funding wouldn’t be enough for a vehicle to visit every town in the state. “We thought it was important to focus this monitoring project in areas where we know there are already economic and/or health disparities, and where people may have a higher likelihood of exposure to air pollution,” says May. “There’s going to be quite a bit of overlap with the 16 communities identified by Ecology as ‘overburdened and highly impacted by air pollution.’”

Communities and Tribes to be studied

This list will change. In accordance with Ecology's agreement with six participating Tribes, it does not yet include areas where Tribes have elected to join.

Careful thought and planning went into the design of the mobile monitoring study, pulling from a variety of sources on air pollution and health disparities. With mobile monitoring routes designed by University of Washington researchers, the study is expected to provide useful information to everybody in Washington, even if the vehicles don’t pass your front door.

As for the vehicles doing the work, they'll blend in with regular traffic. Inside, each monitoring vehicle will hold an array of equipment, but from the street, they'll look like a delivery van. The vehicles will have an Ecology logo and will drive along a predetermined route several times at different points in the year. But unlike road-mapping cars, these air monitoring vehicles won't take a picture of you while you’re mowing the lawn. The vans don’t have cameras. The data collected is strictly related to air quality and pollution. No personally identifiable information about community members can be gathered.

Mobile monitoring versus stationary monitoring

The Air Quality Program is one of the original programs at Ecology. Staff today are building off almost 60 years of high-quality air monitoring methodology. Because of that reverence for scientific process and data verification, there isn’t an off-the-shelf mobile monitoring solution we could buy that would meet the needs of this study. “That’s part of why we conducted a thorough and competitive process to identify the most qualified contractors to perform this work. Spheros Environmental was awarded the contract — with subcontractors Aerodyne Research, FluxSense, and University of Washington — and has a great team of scientists with expertise and experience doing these types of studies,” says Sean Lundblad, who leads the Air Quality Technical Services section at Ecology. Lundblad oversees the development and maintenance of Washington’s air monitoring network.

“The strength of our stationary monitoring sites are in their ability to tell us how air pollution changes over time and give us important feedback about the success of our efforts to equitably protect and improve air quality in Washington,” says Lundblad. “We have about 150 stationary air monitoring sites across the state, and, by design, we want them to stay in one spot for years or even decades, so we can reliably study air quality trends. But the more we measure, the greater the cost in both dollars to buy the equipment and lease air monitoring sites as well as the number of people it takes to operate, calibrate, and repair all those monitors. This is why we can’t install a stationary mass spectrometry device or gas chromatograph on every school roof. This study will look for more pollutants using these devices on a mobile platform that aren’t feasible to use at a stationary site.”

The mobile monitoring study is in the planning phase right now, but vehicles are expected to hit the road in December 2026. As the monitoring begins, it will take about a year to collect data, followed by a few months of analysis before the study findings are made public in 2028. Follow our progress about this mobile monitoring study.

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