Public health experts want stronger air quality monitoring network
Image | Courtesy of MassDEP via State House News Service
The state's air quality monitoring network includes four sites in Central Massachusetts.
Environmental advocates and public health experts pressed lawmakers Wednesday to support proposals strengthening the state's network of air quality monitors that can track additional contaminants, with the aim of helping communities disproportionately impacted by pollution and worse health outcomes.
The Public Health Committee sent a similar bill tackling indoor air pollution and indoor mold in schools (S 1546) to the Senate Ways and Means Committee last week, pointed out Paulina Muratore, the Conservation Law Foundation's director of transportation justice and infrastructure.
The panel on Wednesday heard about counterpart measures from Reps. Christine Barber and Mike Connolly and Sen. Pat Jehlen (H 2369 / S 1548) to establish a technical advisory committee tasked with identifying likely air pollution hotspots linked to high concentrations of traffic- or industry-related pollution.
By the end of 2026, air monitors would be installed in at least eight hotspots to measure for black carbon, nitrogen oxides or ultrafine particulate matter, according to the legislation. The Department of Environmental Protection would then work to ensure that air pollution in those areas is slashed by at least 75% by the end of 2035.
"This bill tackles air pollution in a comprehensive way and addresses key requests that environmental justice, or EJ, communities have long asked for," Muratore told the committee. "We do applaud Massachusetts for expanding air quality monitoring in many ways across the state. However, unlike fine particulate matter, which spreads out over large geographical areas, what we're really focused on here is ultrafine particulate matter, which is more health-damaging and stays in the immediate vicinity of polluting sources."
Jehlen, a Somerville Democrat, recalled a constituent who lived across the street from a busy highway. The man never smoked, but he died of lung cancer, Jehlen said.
"So that makes it very important to me and to others," said Jehlen, who noted air pollution is also linked to higher rates of heart disease, stroke, asthma and autism.
Combined legislation last session focused on improving both indoor and outdoor air quality stalled in the Senate Ways and Means Committee.
MassDEP operates 26 air quality monitoring stations in 21 communities, according to a network assessment released in June. The agency "places an emphasis" on monitoring ozone and particulate matter, and also tracks black carbon and ultrafine particulates, among other pollutants.
Last year, MassDEP added four ultrafine particulate monitors at stations in Boston, Chelmsford and Springfield, according to the assessment. The legislation defines "fine particulate matter" as less than or equal to 2.5 micrometers in diameter, with "ultrafine particulate matter" as less than or equal to 0.1 micrometers.
A permanent air monitoring station was installed in 2021 near the contentious natural gas station compression station in Weymouth, where environmental activists and elected officials had long warned about public health issues in an area already grappling with a history of air pollution. The station continuously monitors fine particulate matter, nitrogen oxide and ozone, and it tracks volatile organic compounds every six days, according to a state webpage.
Dr. Shalini Shah, an environmental pediatrician at Boston Children's Hospital, said the state's existing air quality monitoring network is "largely inadequate" for encompassing all 351 cities and towns across Massachusetts. She added that among existing monitors, "not all key pollutants are tracked."
"This bill will change that. It will allow us to identify hotspots, target resources, and protect children in the neighborhoods that need it most," Shah said. "We must act now to ensure every child in the state has the chance to grow up breathing clean, healthy air."
Children in low-income areas and communities of color face the "greatest burden" from air pollution, Shah said. In Boston, Black and Latino children are hospitalized for asthma at a rate that is four to six times greater than white children, she said.
Through the legislation, the advisory committee would also make recommendations on installing air filtration systems in eligible buildings situated near certain roadways, marine terminals, airports, train stations and train yards. The committee would identify funding sources to "provide incentives" for buildings like schools and public and private housing.
The legislation has existed in different forms for years on Beacon Hill. An earlier version was reported favorably by the Public Health Committee before meeting a dead end in the House Ways and Means Committee.
"We get a lot of emails saying this should be a no-brainer," committee co-chair Rep. Marjorie Decker said last session. "The goals are a no-brainer. The implementation is actually absolutely not a no-brainer."
Muratore said the revised bill was "shaped directly in response to feedback from this committee."
David Melly, senior policy director at the Environmental League of Massachusetts, acknowledged the latest legislative push comes as state officials confront the potential of dwindling federal dollars.
"The money issue is something that we're continuing to work on with your colleagues in the environment and Ways and Means committees," Melly told the Public Health Committee.
U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert Kennedy Jr. wants to boost air pollution research under a new strategy unveiled Tuesday from the Make America Healthy Again Commission, Politico's E&E News reported. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency this summer closed a North Carolina lab that studied air pollution, and EPA restructuring has also hampered research efforts.
The MAHA strategy says the EPA and the National Institutes of Health "will study air quality impacts on children's health and utilize existing research programs to improve data collection and analysis."
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