Air Quality Gadgets Fly Off Shelves in Smoky, Hazy West

wherever you get your podcasts. We are once again talking wildfires on Parts Pavillion today, but more specifically, we're talking about the newest tech gadget that's sadly but understandably becoming a must have on the West Coast, personal air Monitoring censors. Hello, and welcome back once again to Parts Pavilion, the environmental

podcast from Bloomberg Law. I'm your host, David Schultz. So as I talk to you today on Wednesday, September sixteenth, the weather seems to be improving in California and the Pacific Northwest. That's good news for firefighters and really for everyone, but it's especially welcome for people in cities that are blanketed with haze from wildfires that are nearly unprecedented in scope.

The fires raging up and down the West Coast have led many towns there to get air quality readings that are not just the worst in the country, but are the worst in the entire world. This is a disaster that affects people in countless ways, but today we're going to focus on just one of those ways, the way people living near a fire can tell just how bad their air really is. The EPA has been monitoring air quality for decades, but their sensors can leave a little

bit to be desired. For one, they don't update their readings in real time, and two, their sensors are usually located near factories and other sources of pollution. It's not very helpful for people who want to know what's going on with the air right in their own backyard. That's where personal air monitoring devices come in. For a couple hundred bucks, you can buy one of these gadgets and plug it in your yard and it will spit out

data directly to your smartphone. The most popular of these devices is made by a company called Purple Air, which is seeing a huge demand spike all across the West Coast. Laura Bliss, a reporter with Bloomberg City Lab, did some reporting on these Purple Air devices, and she found that while they can fill in some of these EPA data gaps, the devices raised serious questions about who can access real

time air quality information and who can't. I spoke to Laura from her home in San Francisco, and I started off by asking her about the latest weather forecasts. Yeah, it's definitely a big relief for the Bay Area today. Air quality conditions have improved a lot for us here in San Francisco and kind of the immediate area surrounding.

We've been over an air quality index of one point fifty pretty consistently for the last almost week, which is unhealthy, you know, pretty much across the board today we're below one hundreds. That's a really good sign right well, and remind some of our listeners maybe who were on the East coast or the Midwest. You know, this is sort of a lingua franca for people on the West coast. But one hundred one fifty are those is one hundred

is bad? Above one hundred is bad, Yeah, exactly. I mean a week ago, I don't think I would have had that lingua franca. But over one fifty, I believe is the range where air quality experts consider that level. And again, this is an this is an index. It's like averaged across a lot of different like pollution measurements between you know, particular matter and ozone readings and other things that are in the air. Over one fifty is where it starts to be like worrying for you know,

groups who aren't particularly sensitive. And certainly over two hundred is where you get into that kind of you know, widespread this is not good for your health range to be breathing this in for more than a day. And we've also seen you know, I mean here in San Francisco, there's been times when we've been over three hundred, which is where you know, it's kind of that emergency level. So again, you know, these are sort of arbitrary thresholds

according to air quality experts. There's not necessarily, you know, one hard and fast rule about when you know you're allowed to open your window or go outside. Of course, it's really dependent on your personal health as well. So tell me about these purple air monitoring sensors. You wrote about them in a story recently. What exactly are they and what do they do? Yeah, So, purple air sensors

are a commercial grade air quality monitoring device. They sell for two hundred and three hundred dollars depending on the model you get. And there are these devices that have become increasingly popular on the West Coast since twenty seventeen twenty eighteen, which was around the time we really started to see these massive catastrophic fires just year after year. And it's interesting. There's more than nine thousand of them

all over the world. Again, it's Utah based, but there's really this proliferation of them in northern California, Oregon, Washington because of the wildfire issue and because of other you know, air quality issues that the West Coast faces. Well, it's interesting and one of the things that your story pointed out is that people use these devices to find out what the air quality is around them and basically, you know,

in their house, in their neighborhood. But the thing that makes these Purple Air sensors unique is that that information is then also posted publicly on Purple Air's website, so anyone can go on and see, you know, here's a Purple Air sensor and this is what the air quality is there. That's an interesting It sort of plays a

dual role there, right, Yeah, exactly. And it's important to note that there's other companies that make, you know, commercial grade air quality monitors that are roughly the same price range. Some of them are designed to be portable or even you know, attached to your phone or there's an app for them. Purple Air is kind of unique. It's it's designed to be stationary, so you know, you put it in your backyard, or you can also put it inside

your house if you want. And then exactly the other thing that really makes it unique is that your data. You know, if you opt to feeds in pretty much real time to this public facing map where anyone in the world can go on and see, you know, everybody's sort of purple air devices pumping out this real time kind of index of how air quality is faring in their in their part of the world. And so you know,

back to that kind of West coast Lingo Franca. You know, I don't know if everyone on the street would know what a Purple Air is, but you know, certainly if you're logged on, you know, to your computer and kind of concerned, there's a lot of eyeballs that are on that Purple Air website. The founder, Adrian Dibwob told me last week that web traffic was up something like one thousand percent half a million hits from Californ alone, like

on a daily basis. So this has become a real go to well, and you had a really great anecdote in your story where you were speaking with a woman in the Bay Area who purchased one of these sensors and was posting this data online and then just turned it off one day just because her husband was mowing the launch needed to plug something into to mow the lawn. And her neighbor came by and said, hey, why did you turn off your your sensor? I was looking at

that and relying on your sensor for air quality. I mean it was on nextdoor. Actually, that's such a Bay Area like Silicon Valley kind of thing to do, and I think it's important to note, and I think we'll chat about this a little bit later, like these have proliferated in the Bay Area, I think not just because of the wildfires, but because people are kind of like tech oriented, right and also have the you know, extra cash to buy a two hundred dollars censor, which obviously

not everyone does. Reminds me of when I actually when I was in college and I may have been using my neighbor's WiFi. He didn't have a password on it at that time, and when he would turn off his motem, I would sort of be like, should I go knock on his door and tell him to turn his motem

back on? Anyway, that's neither here nor there. But let's talk about how the environmental implications of this, because the EPA, as we've talked about on this podcast many times, monitors the air pretty obsessively and creates regulations around that, you know, and if the air quality in a certain region gets above you know, it gets too bad, there can be serious economic consequences, like their businesses may not be able to open, they may not get permits, factories might have

to shut down. How does purple air compare to the way that the EPA monitors its data? Is Purple Air doing the same thing that the EPA is doing or is it a little bit different? Yeah, it's such an important question, and it's really important context for this whole story, right, because purple air, you know, the sensors are not running

like in a vacuum of information. Right. The EPA absolutely does this as part of its everyday regulatory work, you know, and and for anybody who's been you know, or who's on the West coast and looking for information probably also knows that there is an EPA you know, public facing

map with air quality information. It's called air Now, and it does give a pretty good sense of you know, it doesn't update nearly as quickly, but their regulatory grade monitors actually directly measure the amount of pollution that's in the air, and so that's a slower process, but it's a lot more accurate. Purple Air does something kind of different. It uses a laser kind of technology to sort of

take a scan basically of of that pollution. So it's it's almost like good metaphor I read in a story by Wired of the same technology as it's like shining a flashlight into like a dusty attic and kind of counting all the float you know, dust motes in the air just by looking at it. So you can see how that's going to be less exact on a you know, monitor to monitor comparison versus the EPA monitor, which is actually going to directly count all those little dust moodes.

But this is a great example of how you know when the EPA is because there's such huge, you know, policy and economic implications. The e PA needs really really exact data. But sometimes you don't want necessarily the most exact data. You just want the most recent and a lot of data. And it sounds like that's what Purple

Ayer is doing. Yeah, exactly, That's That's what a lot of people I spoke to the story who own Purple Air monitors and rely on them say, it's like, you know, we're not We're not so concerned with whether you know, this is exactly matching up to you know, the regulatory grade data. It's really just so that I know and can get a comparative sense, you know, of how my

locality is doing. I think that's another important distinction. The e PA tends to place its monitors near industrial sites or you know, highways or you know points or pollution versus Purple Air, which can be in your backyard. We're going to take a quick break now, but when we get back, we'll talk about who is using these Purple Air devices and who isn't stay with us. We're talking with Laura Bliss, a reporter from Bloomberg's City Lab, from

her home in San Francisco. She says, even though Purple Air devices aren't accurate enough to use for federal regulations, the EPA and other agencies are trying to find a

way to use the mountains of data they put out. Yeah, so the EPA and the Forest Service have already teamed up to use Purple Airs data to I think it's this is still in the pilot phases, but they now have a third map that is available on you know, in a public facing manner that binds that regulatory grade equipment with the Purple Air kind of real time data. And it's a smoke map, so it's it's tracking smoke as well as the you know, air quality index and

some of that other pollution information. So that's kind of like, you know, your your best of both world's kind of kind of tool there. But that's interesting. It's kind of an example of like citizen science, I guess, being used in a public you know way. Yeah, totally totally. And I know that this story that I wrote was kind of focused on this sort of delightful community of like

tech nerds who have banded together. You know, there's there's like this amazing Facebook group where there's like twelve hundred Purple Air owners end users who, like a lot of them, are very gadget minded, you know, those sort of swap tips about how to like solder on new circuit wires and like how to attach you know, the Purple Air to your home pod system. And other people of course just are interested in data itself because they've got asthma

or other respiratory issues. But yeah, it's definitely this community of people who I think are of course interested in it for themselves and are also interested in doing it because they know it's more widely beneficial for other people to know. Well, finally, you know, let's sort of rain on this parade a little bit, because, you know, this so far it sounds like this is a good news story.

You know, we have this new technology that's coming out that's giving people more data about their air quality at a time when they really really need information about their air quality because things, as you mentioned on the Pacific

coast are pretty bad. However, as you mentioned, the people who are buying these Purple Air sensors and are using them and maybe going to the Facebook group and talking about modifying them, they're pretty tech savvy and maybe they're also you know, have the means to buy and potentially modify purple air devices. What about the people who aren't tech savvy or maybe people who can afford a couple hundred bucks to go get a you know, purple air device.

Is this kind of creating a socioeconomic issue here, you know, haves and haves not issue, absolutely. I think like the sort of great test of a purple air like device, whether it's purple air or something else, you know, is for its potential to expand beyond rich white hobbyists, right, you know, to put it bluntly, like, you know, that's largely who's behind you know, the proliferation of them here

in the Bay Area. Certainly there are pockets, you know, around the country where environmental justice advocates have also you know, latched onto purple air as a solution to tracking air pollution in their communities. I actually last year met a teenager in Fresno in California Central Valley, which is one of the most polluted places in the country, really bad asthma rates. He was using purple air and like had

built his own app, and it was pretty amazing. But those stories are kind of few and far between, and so you're absolutely right. There are big blank spots, you know currently when if you just look at the Purple Air map in the network of these devices, and you know, research tells us that poor communities and communities of color tend to be the place's most exposed to air pollution problems. Adrian Dibwab, the CEO of the company, is, you know,

hopeful that we're partnerships with the EPA. There's also school districts and air quality agencies on a more local basis that have started to distribute these devices to places like high schools and parks and that kind of thing. Yeah, well, you're right. I mean I just glanmed before I talked with you. I just glanced really quickly at the Purple Air map and I've looked at Silicon Valley and you know, the Bay Area and there are little dots, you know,

all over the place. They're super dense. And then I just moved the map over a little bit and looked at the Central Valley and it was far fewer. So it sounds like it sounds like it's an issue that the CEO of the company is aware of and is trying to address. But for now, the places where these devices are gathering data are predominantly very wealthy, well to do neighborhoods, right, yeah, I mean, which totally makes sense

given they're not hugely expensive. Right. But you know, right now, in the middle of a pandemic, people losing their jobs, they're concerned about all kinds of things. You know, are you about to go spend two fifty on you know, your backyard air pollution monitor? I don't know. So that is definitely a sort of gap, a serious gap in the data. That's it for today's episode of Parts Rebellion. If you want more environmental news, check out our website

Newstop Bloomberg environment dot com. That website, once again is news dot Bloomberg environment dot com. Today's episode of Parts for Billion was produced by myself and Josh Block. Parts Pavilion was created by Jessica Coombs and Rachel Daegel. The music for today's episode is a message by Jazar and City of God by Lewis Edwards and Henry Parsley, who are used under a Creative Commons license. Thank you everyone for listening. Those nine justices in Washington that can be

pretty hard to keep track of. That's where we come in. I'm Jordan Rubin and I'm Kimberly Robinson. On our podcast Cases and Controversies, we give you a week by week accounting of the Supreme Court, the filings, the arguments, the opinions, and much much more. So. Check in on Fridays with Cases and Controversies to find out what's coming up on the horizon at the Supreme Court. Download and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.