Speaker 1: Hey there. I'm Kyle Trigstad, Politics editor for Bloomberg Government,
Speaker 1: and I'm Greg Giroux, Senior Elections reporter for Bloomberg Government.
Speaker 1: Check out our podcast, down Ballot Counts. Each week, Greg
Speaker 1: and I will be breaking down all of those down
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Speaker 1: Listen and subscribe to down Ballot Counts from Bloomberg Government
Speaker 1: wherever you get your podcasts. We are once again talking
Speaker 1: wildfires on Parts Pavillion today, but more specifically, we're talking
Speaker 1: about the newest tech gadget that's sadly but understandably becoming
Speaker 1: a must have on the West Coast, personal air Monitoring censors. Hello,
Speaker 1: and welcome back once again to Parts Pavilion, the environmental
Speaker 1: podcast from Bloomberg Law. I'm your host, David Schultz. So
Speaker 1: as I talk to you today on Wednesday, September sixteenth,
Speaker 1: the weather seems to be improving in California and the
Speaker 1: Pacific Northwest. That's good news for firefighters and really for everyone,
Speaker 1: but it's especially welcome for people in cities that are
Speaker 1: blanketed with haze from wildfires that are nearly unprecedented in scope.
Speaker 1: The fires raging up and down the West Coast have
Speaker 1: led many towns there to get air quality readings that
Speaker 1: are not just the worst in the country, but are
Speaker 1: the worst in the entire world. This is a disaster
Speaker 1: that affects people in countless ways, but today we're going
Speaker 1: to focus on just one of those ways, the way
Speaker 1: people living near a fire can tell just how bad
Speaker 1: their air really is. The EPA has been monitoring air
Speaker 1: quality for decades, but their sensors can leave a little
Speaker 1: bit to be desired. For one, they don't update their
Speaker 1: readings in real time, and two, their sensors are usually
Speaker 1: located near factories and other sources of pollution. It's not
Speaker 1: very helpful for people who want to know what's going
Speaker 1: on with the air right in their own backyard. That's
Speaker 1: where personal air monitoring devices come in. For a couple
Speaker 1: hundred bucks, you can buy one of these gadgets and
Speaker 1: plug it in your yard and it will spit out
Speaker 1: data directly to your smartphone. The most popular of these
Speaker 1: devices is made by a company called Purple Air, which
Speaker 1: is seeing a huge demand spike all across the West Coast.
Speaker 1: Laura Bliss, a reporter with Bloomberg City Lab, did some
Speaker 1: reporting on these Purple Air devices, and she found that
Speaker 1: while they can fill in some of these EPA data gaps,
Speaker 1: the devices raised serious questions about who can access real
Speaker 1: time air quality information and who can't. I spoke to
Speaker 1: Laura from her home in San Francisco, and I started
Speaker 1: off by asking her about the latest weather forecasts. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's definitely a big relief for the Bay Area today.
Speaker 1: Air quality conditions have improved a lot for us here
Speaker 1: in San Francisco and kind of the immediate area surrounding.
Speaker 1: We've been over an air quality index of one point
Speaker 1: fifty pretty consistently for the last almost week, which is unhealthy,
Speaker 1: you know, pretty much across the board today we're below
Speaker 1: one hundreds. That's a really good sign right well, and
Speaker 1: remind some of our listeners maybe who were on the
Speaker 1: East coast or the Midwest. You know, this is sort
Speaker 1: of a lingua franca for people on the West coast.
Speaker 1: But one hundred one fifty are those is one hundred
Speaker 1: is bad? Above one hundred is bad, Yeah, exactly. I
Speaker 1: mean a week ago, I don't think I would have
Speaker 1: had that lingua franca. But over one fifty, I believe
Speaker 1: is the range where air quality experts consider that level.
Speaker 1: And again, this is an this is an index. It's
Speaker 1: like averaged across a lot of different like pollution measurements
Speaker 1: between you know, particular matter and ozone readings and other
Speaker 1: things that are in the air. Over one fifty is
Speaker 1: where it starts to be like worrying for you know,
Speaker 1: groups who aren't particularly sensitive. And certainly over two hundred
Speaker 1: is where you get into that kind of you know,
Speaker 1: widespread this is not good for your health range to
Speaker 1: be breathing this in for more than a day. And
Speaker 1: we've also seen you know, I mean here in San Francisco,
Speaker 1: there's been times when we've been over three hundred, which
Speaker 1: is where you know, it's kind of that emergency level.
Speaker 1: So again, you know, these are sort of arbitrary thresholds
Speaker 1: according to air quality experts. There's not necessarily, you know,
Speaker 1: one hard and fast rule about when you know you're
Speaker 1: allowed to open your window or go outside. Of course,
Speaker 1: it's really dependent on your personal health as well. So
Speaker 1: tell me about these purple air monitoring sensors. You wrote
Speaker 1: about them in a story recently. What exactly are they
Speaker 1: and what do they do? Yeah, So, purple air sensors
Speaker 1: are a commercial grade air quality monitoring device. They sell
Speaker 1: for two hundred and three hundred dollars depending on the
Speaker 1: model you get. And there are these devices that have
Speaker 1: become increasingly popular on the West Coast since twenty seventeen
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, which was around the time we really started
Speaker 1: to see these massive catastrophic fires just year after year.
Speaker 1: And it's interesting. There's more than nine thousand of them
Speaker 1: all over the world. Again, it's Utah based, but there's
Speaker 1: really this proliferation of them in northern California, Oregon, Washington
Speaker 1: because of the wildfire issue and because of other you know,
Speaker 1: air quality issues that the West Coast faces. Well, it's
Speaker 1: interesting and one of the things that your story pointed
Speaker 1: out is that people use these devices to find out
Speaker 1: what the air quality is around them and basically, you know,
Speaker 1: in their house, in their neighborhood. But the thing that
Speaker 1: makes these Purple Air sensors unique is that that information
Speaker 1: is then also posted publicly on Purple Air's website, so
Speaker 1: anyone can go on and see, you know, here's a
Speaker 1: Purple Air sensor and this is what the air quality
Speaker 1: is there. That's an interesting It sort of plays a
Speaker 1: dual role there, right, Yeah, exactly. And it's important to
Speaker 1: note that there's other companies that make, you know, commercial
Speaker 1: grade air quality monitors that are roughly the same price range.
Speaker 1: Some of them are designed to be portable or even
Speaker 1: you know, attached to your phone or there's an app
Speaker 1: for them. Purple Air is kind of unique. It's it's
Speaker 1: designed to be stationary, so you know, you put it
Speaker 1: in your backyard, or you can also put it inside
Speaker 1: your house if you want. And then exactly the other
Speaker 1: thing that really makes it unique is that your data.
Speaker 1: You know, if you opt to feeds in pretty much
Speaker 1: real time to this public facing map where anyone in
Speaker 1: the world can go on and see, you know, everybody's
Speaker 1: sort of purple air devices pumping out this real time
Speaker 1: kind of index of how air quality is faring in
Speaker 1: their in their part of the world. And so you know,
Speaker 1: back to that kind of West coast Lingo Franca. You know,
Speaker 1: I don't know if everyone on the street would know
Speaker 1: what a Purple Air is, but you know, certainly if
Speaker 1: you're logged on, you know, to your computer and kind
Speaker 1: of concerned, there's a lot of eyeballs that are on
Speaker 1: that Purple Air website. The founder, Adrian Dibwob told me
Speaker 1: last week that web traffic was up something like one
Speaker 1: thousand percent half a million hits from Californ alone, like
Speaker 1: on a daily basis. So this has become a real
Speaker 1: go to well, and you had a really great anecdote
Speaker 1: in your story where you were speaking with a woman
Speaker 1: in the Bay Area who purchased one of these sensors
Speaker 1: and was posting this data online and then just turned
Speaker 1: it off one day just because her husband was mowing
Speaker 1: the launch needed to plug something into to mow the lawn.
Speaker 1: And her neighbor came by and said, hey, why did
Speaker 1: you turn off your your sensor? I was looking at
Speaker 1: that and relying on your sensor for air quality. I
Speaker 1: mean it was on nextdoor. Actually, that's such a Bay
Speaker 1: Area like Silicon Valley kind of thing to do, and
Speaker 1: I think it's important to note, and I think we'll
Speaker 1: chat about this a little bit later, like these have
Speaker 1: proliferated in the Bay Area, I think not just because
Speaker 1: of the wildfires, but because people are kind of like
Speaker 1: tech oriented, right and also have the you know, extra
Speaker 1: cash to buy a two hundred dollars censor, which obviously
Speaker 1: not everyone does. Reminds me of when I actually when
Speaker 1: I was in college and I may have been using
Speaker 1: my neighbor's WiFi. He didn't have a password on it
Speaker 1: at that time, and when he would turn off his motem,
Speaker 1: I would sort of be like, should I go knock
Speaker 1: on his door and tell him to turn his motem
Speaker 1: back on? Anyway, that's neither here nor there. But let's
Speaker 1: talk about how the environmental implications of this, because the EPA,
Speaker 1: as we've talked about on this podcast many times, monitors
Speaker 1: the air pretty obsessively and creates regulations around that, you know,
Speaker 1: and if the air quality in a certain region gets
Speaker 1: above you know, it gets too bad, there can be
Speaker 1: serious economic consequences, like their businesses may not be able
Speaker 1: to open, they may not get permits, factories might have
Speaker 1: to shut down. How does purple air compare to the
Speaker 1: way that the EPA monitors its data? Is Purple Air
Speaker 1: doing the same thing that the EPA is doing or
Speaker 1: is it a little bit different? Yeah, it's such an
Speaker 1: important question, and it's really important context for this whole story, right,
Speaker 1: because purple air, you know, the sensors are not running
Speaker 1: like in a vacuum of information. Right. The EPA absolutely
Speaker 1: does this as part of its everyday regulatory work, you know,
Speaker 1: and and for anybody who's been you know, or who's
Speaker 1: on the West coast and looking for information probably also
Speaker 1: knows that there is an EPA you know, public facing
Speaker 1: map with air quality information. It's called air Now, and
Speaker 1: it does give a pretty good sense of you know,
Speaker 1: it doesn't update nearly as quickly, but their regulatory grade
Speaker 1: monitors actually directly measure the amount of pollution that's in
Speaker 1: the air, and so that's a slower process, but it's
Speaker 1: a lot more accurate. Purple Air does something kind of different.
Speaker 1: It uses a laser kind of technology to sort of
Speaker 1: take a scan basically of of that pollution. So it's
Speaker 1: it's almost like good metaphor I read in a story
Speaker 1: by Wired of the same technology as it's like shining
Speaker 1: a flashlight into like a dusty attic and kind of
Speaker 1: counting all the float you know, dust motes in the
Speaker 1: air just by looking at it. So you can see
Speaker 1: how that's going to be less exact on a you know,
Speaker 1: monitor to monitor comparison versus the EPA monitor, which is
Speaker 1: actually going to directly count all those little dust moodes.
Speaker 1: But this is a great example of how you know
Speaker 1: when the EPA is because there's such huge, you know,
Speaker 1: policy and economic implications. The e PA needs really really
Speaker 1: exact data. But sometimes you don't want necessarily the most
Speaker 1: exact data. You just want the most recent and a
Speaker 1: lot of data. And it sounds like that's what Purple
Speaker 1: Ayer is doing. Yeah, exactly, That's That's what a lot
Speaker 1: of people I spoke to the story who own Purple
Speaker 1: Air monitors and rely on them say, it's like, you know,
Speaker 1: we're not We're not so concerned with whether you know,
Speaker 1: this is exactly matching up to you know, the regulatory
Speaker 1: grade data. It's really just so that I know and
Speaker 1: can get a comparative sense, you know, of how my
Speaker 1: locality is doing. I think that's another important distinction. The
Speaker 1: e PA tends to place its monitors near industrial sites
Speaker 1: or you know, highways or you know points or pollution
Speaker 1: versus Purple Air, which can be in your backyard. We're
Speaker 1: going to take a quick break now, but when we
Speaker 1: get back, we'll talk about who is using these Purple
Speaker 1: Air devices and who isn't stay with us. We're talking
Speaker 1: with Laura Bliss, a reporter from Bloomberg's City Lab, from
Speaker 1: her home in San Francisco. She says, even though Purple
Speaker 1: Air devices aren't accurate enough to use for federal regulations,
Speaker 1: the EPA and other agencies are trying to find a
Speaker 1: way to use the mountains of data they put out. Yeah,
Speaker 1: so the EPA and the Forest Service have already teamed
Speaker 1: up to use Purple Airs data to I think it's
Speaker 1: this is still in the pilot phases, but they now
Speaker 1: have a third map that is available on you know,
Speaker 1: in a public facing manner that binds that regulatory grade
Speaker 1: equipment with the Purple Air kind of real time data.
Speaker 1: And it's a smoke map, so it's it's tracking smoke
Speaker 1: as well as the you know, air quality index and
Speaker 1: some of that other pollution information. So that's kind of like,
Speaker 1: you know, your your best of both world's kind of
Speaker 1: kind of tool there. But that's interesting. It's kind of
Speaker 1: an example of like citizen science, I guess, being used
Speaker 1: in a public you know way. Yeah, totally totally. And
Speaker 1: I know that this story that I wrote was kind
Speaker 1: of focused on this sort of delightful community of like
Speaker 1: tech nerds who have banded together. You know, there's there's
Speaker 1: like this amazing Facebook group where there's like twelve hundred
Speaker 1: Purple Air owners end users who, like a lot of them,
Speaker 1: are very gadget minded, you know, those sort of swap
Speaker 1: tips about how to like solder on new circuit wires
Speaker 1: and like how to attach you know, the Purple Air
Speaker 1: to your home pod system. And other people of course
Speaker 1: just are interested in data itself because they've got asthma
Speaker 1: or other respiratory issues. But yeah, it's definitely this community
Speaker 1: of people who I think are of course interested in
Speaker 1: it for themselves and are also interested in doing it
Speaker 1: because they know it's more widely beneficial for other people
Speaker 1: to know. Well, finally, you know, let's sort of rain
Speaker 1: on this parade a little bit, because, you know, this
Speaker 1: so far it sounds like this is a good news story.
Speaker 1: You know, we have this new technology that's coming out
Speaker 1: that's giving people more data about their air quality at
Speaker 1: a time when they really really need information about their
Speaker 1: air quality because things, as you mentioned on the Pacific
Speaker 1: coast are pretty bad. However, as you mentioned, the people
Speaker 1: who are buying these Purple Air sensors and are using
Speaker 1: them and maybe going to the Facebook group and talking
Speaker 1: about modifying them, they're pretty tech savvy and maybe they're
Speaker 1: also you know, have the means to buy and potentially
Speaker 1: modify purple air devices. What about the people who aren't
Speaker 1: tech savvy or maybe people who can afford a couple
Speaker 1: hundred bucks to go get a you know, purple air device.
Speaker 1: Is this kind of creating a socioeconomic issue here, you know,
Speaker 1: haves and haves not issue, absolutely. I think like the
Speaker 1: sort of great test of a purple air like device,
Speaker 1: whether it's purple air or something else, you know, is
Speaker 1: for its potential to expand beyond rich white hobbyists, right,
Speaker 1: you know, to put it bluntly, like, you know, that's
Speaker 1: largely who's behind you know, the proliferation of them here
Speaker 1: in the Bay Area. Certainly there are pockets, you know,
Speaker 1: around the country where environmental justice advocates have also you know,
Speaker 1: latched onto purple air as a solution to tracking air
Speaker 1: pollution in their communities. I actually last year met a
Speaker 1: teenager in Fresno in California Central Valley, which is one
Speaker 1: of the most polluted places in the country, really bad
Speaker 1: asthma rates. He was using purple air and like had
Speaker 1: built his own app, and it was pretty amazing. But
Speaker 1: those stories are kind of few and far between, and
Speaker 1: so you're absolutely right. There are big blank spots, you
Speaker 1: know currently when if you just look at the Purple
Speaker 1: Air map in the network of these devices, and you know,
Speaker 1: research tells us that poor communities and communities of color
Speaker 1: tend to be the place's most exposed to air pollution problems.
Speaker 1: Adrian Dibwab, the CEO of the company, is, you know,
Speaker 1: hopeful that we're partnerships with the EPA. There's also school
Speaker 1: districts and air quality agencies on a more local basis
Speaker 1: that have started to distribute these devices to places like
Speaker 1: high schools and parks and that kind of thing. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: you're right. I mean I just glanmed before I talked
Speaker 1: with you. I just glanced really quickly at the Purple
Speaker 1: Air map and I've looked at Silicon Valley and you know,
Speaker 1: the Bay Area and there are little dots, you know,
Speaker 1: all over the place. They're super dense. And then I
Speaker 1: just moved the map over a little bit and looked
Speaker 1: at the Central Valley and it was far fewer. So
Speaker 1: it sounds like it sounds like it's an issue that
Speaker 1: the CEO of the company is aware of and is
Speaker 1: trying to address. But for now, the places where these
Speaker 1: devices are gathering data are predominantly very wealthy, well to
Speaker 1: do neighborhoods, right, yeah, I mean, which totally makes sense
Speaker 1: given they're not hugely expensive. Right. But you know, right now,
Speaker 1: in the middle of a pandemic, people losing their jobs,
Speaker 1: they're concerned about all kinds of things. You know, are
Speaker 1: you about to go spend two fifty on you know,
Speaker 1: your backyard air pollution monitor? I don't know. So that
Speaker 1: is definitely a sort of gap, a serious gap in
Speaker 1: the data. That's it for today's episode of Parts Rebellion.
Speaker 1: If you want more environmental news, check out our website
Speaker 1: Newstop Bloomberg environment dot com. That website, once again is
Speaker 1: news dot Bloomberg environment dot com. Today's episode of Parts
Speaker 1: for Billion was produced by myself and Josh Block. Parts
Speaker 1: Pavilion was created by Jessica Coombs and Rachel Daegel. The
Speaker 1: music for today's episode is a message by Jazar and
Speaker 1: City of God by Lewis Edwards and Henry Parsley, who
Speaker 1: are used under a Creative Commons license. Thank you everyone
Speaker 1: for listening. Those nine justices in Washington that can be
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Speaker 1: I'm Jordan Rubin and I'm Kimberly Robinson. On our podcast
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