A new air quality monitor installed in Bellevue made its public debut May 7, becoming the first District’s official monitor in Ward 8. At the ribbon cutting, District officials emphasized commitments to improving air quality in communities that have faced environmental injustice.
“When racial equity is not explicitly brought into operations and decision-making, racial inequities are likely to be perpetuated,” Dr. Amber Hewitt, D.C.’s chief equity officer, said in a speech at the event. “This monitor will help fill the information gaps right here in Ward 8, and policymakers will be able to use the information and data gathered from this project to develop strategies for addressing air quality exposure disparities.”
Hewitt pointed out in her remarks that Bellevue sees the most pediatric emergency room visits out of any census tract in the District. The new monitor, installed on the roof of Bald Eagle Recreation Center, measures fine particulates, also known as PM 2.5. These small particles can enter the bloodstream once inhaled, causing serious health problems such as heart disease, asthma and low birth weight.
The D.C. Department of Energy and Environment (DOEE) looked at many potential sites around Ward 8 for the project, and met with Ward 8 residents — including eco-feminist community advocate Brenda Richardson — several times during the process. Initially, the agency had proposed a list of possible spots around Anacostia, according to Hannah Ashenafi, associate director of DOEE’s Air Quality Division. The sites had to meet the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) standards for air quality data collection, which include rules about height, safe access and distance from roads, among other requirements.
But after listening to community input, Ashenafi’s team restarted the site selection process from scratch. Residents had indicated that they wanted to know more about air pollution in some of D.C.’s southernmost neighborhoods.
“We had quite a few folks say ‘you know, you’ve mostly been looking in the Anacostia area … [but] the southern part of Ward 8 is really a lot more neglected, we don’t have as much information,’” Ashenafi said. “We’ve also heard concerns about how there’s a lot of industrial areas sort of in the south tip of Ward 8 — there’s the wastewater treatment, there’s the asphalt plant.”
DOEE used federal grant money stemming from the American Rescue Plan Act, a 2021 law that directed the Environmental Protection Agency to fund projects addressing health disparities from both air pollution and COVID-19.
According to Berhan Teklu, environmental protection specialist in DOEE’s air monitoring branch, the air quality monitor itself costs about $15,000 and should last around five or six years.
The Ward 8 monitor is the sixth monitor in a network that DOEE uses to submit air quality compliance information to the EPA. It began transmitting data in early April, and that data can be viewed live on the EPA’s interactive map at airnow.gov.
A few weeks of information isn’t enough to draw any firm conclusions, and seasonal changes can have major impacts on PM2.5 and other dangerous pollutants. Still, Teklu said that the data collected from the Bellevue monitor during its first month generally mirrored other air quality monitors around the city.
“So far, it’s [a] very good value, the numbers we’re seeing,” Teklu said of the first month of data. “From experience, it’s good — very low pollution levels.”