City News

DAY 1, MAY 6, 2024--Today marks the beginning of the US EPA’s Air Quality Awareness Week, and this year’s theme is “Knowing Your Air.”

Each day this week, we will highlight important issues related to air quality that affect our country – and Cleveland Heights – in unique and urgent ways. Today, we touch on "Knowing Your Air" and "Wildland Fires and Smoke" (Day One's special theme).

How do we know what’s in our air? We have made tremendous strides in knowing our air since the United States adopted the Clean Air Act in 1970 and created the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). The EPA monitors levels of air pollutants and enforces the law.

Investments in the science of air quality monitoring help us know our air. Technology, such as air monitors, has sharpened what we know about our air at a molecular level. Monitors detect microscopic substances such as particulate matter (PM2.5 and PM10) and ozone (smog), pollutants that are harmful to human health. 

Scientists developed computer models based on trends in the data—forecasting when dangers or “exceedances” of harmful substances are in the air.

Knowing when our air is harmful to human health is possible because scientists, policymakers, and public health professionals debate and set levels for what is safe for humans to breathe.

Monitoring air quality is invaluable work. It has made it possible to know our air and warn people to take precautions when air quality takes a turn for the worse. It has protected many lives. 

Air quality science is important work, but, frankly, the process can leave a gap in ‘knowing our air’ better. We need more local data to understand the degree to which air quality is impacting Cleveland Heights. To that end, the City of Cleveland Heights would like to know how air quality is affecting you and those in your care. Please take a few moments to fill out this air quality survey for AQAW 2024. We would like to know where air quality concerns exist in Cleveland Heights. The survey has a neighborhood focus and will help the City with its Climate Action and Resiliency Plan. It will also help improve the city's air quality alert system.

Today’s Air Quality Awareness daily theme is “Wildland Fires & Smoke.” On June 7, 2023, we all received a wake-up call on how important knowing our air was when wildland fires swept through Canada, and thick clouds of particulate-filled smoke wafted into Cleveland Heights on air currents. The entire region woke to warnings that air pollution was in the Purple category, which means harmful for everyone.

Recognizing the need for more local air quality data, the City of Cleveland Heights last year established its own monitoring network across the city. With information from Cleveland Heights’ and EPA's networks, the City was able to determine that air quality on June 7 and the days that followed exceeded safe levels and share that information quickly in a series of special email alerts with the community. 

Cleveland Heights chose to be an early mover by deploying a low-cost Purple Air monitoring system in public spaces. We were thankful that our residents responded so quickly—canceling outdoor sports and curtailing activities that could make matters worse, such as using fire pits or mowing lawns—during the week or two that our air was laden with deadly wildfire smoke. 

If you want to know more about the air you’re breathing, check out AirNow.gov to see what the United States Air Quality Index (AQI) looks like for our area.

We will be back tomorrow with more important information about Air Quality and your health.

Thanks!

-- All Are Welcome --

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