Overview
Between January 2020 and March 2022, PSE Healthy Energy partnered with the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN) to deploy a dense network of air quality monitors throughout the Richmond, North Richmond, and San Pablo communities in northern California’s East Bay. PSE partnered with Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL) to expand the Richmond Air Monitoring Network to include low-cost black carbon sensors for one winter and one summer month in 2021, and during one wildfire event in 2020. Black carbon is often emitted during the incomplete combustion of biomass and fossil fuels. Because black carbon is linked to various adverse health impacts, monitoring black carbon can help indicate combustion-related emissions that are relevant to both human health and the environment.
The two-year air-monitoring study was designed to analyze spatial patterns of local air pollution over time, assess the distribution of air pollution sources throughout the area, and track emission changes from varying transportation patterns, refinery operations, and other industrial activities. The project team received guidance from the Technical Advisory Panel.
Project goals included:
- Gathering and reporting robust and hyper-local air quality data.
- Working with residents and community groups to identify priority areas with high air pollution and vulnerable populations.
- Supporting the efforts of regional and state air regulators and community groups to develop actionable policies and recommendations to reduce the community’s exposure to air pollutants.
- Raising local public awareness of the relationship between air quality and human health.
On December 15, 2022, PSE published a report outlining the Richmond Air Monitoring Network’s air quality monitoring efforts, key findings, and recommendations.
Why Richmond?
Richmond is one of the ten target communities selected by the California Air Resources Board for a Community Air Grant, a focused action to improve air quality in the areas with highest cumulative air pollution exposure burdens. The grants are supported through the Community Air Protection Program, a California Climate Investments program which was created with the passage of Assembly Bill 617. The Richmond-San Pablo area is a target community because it faces disproportionate impacts from multiple sources of air pollution, including oil and gas facilities, high traffic volumes, large and small industrial facilities, and port and freight activities. The city of San Francisco, located upwind from Richmond, is also a source of ozone precursor emissions. Despite these risk factors, there are few State air monitoring stations deployed in the area, and thus air quality data is limited. This information gap hinders local and State regulators from addressing air pollution effectively. The goal of the Richmond Air Monitoring Network is to address this gap.
Contact Us
If you have information on specific locations with air quality issues in the Richmond-San Pablo area, please contact us via phone or email:
- Boris Lukanov, PhD, Project Lead, (510) 330-5557
- Lee Ann Hill, MPH, (510) 330-5552
- Megan Zapanta (APEN)
PSE Research
Peer Reviewed Publication
The Value of Community Air Monitoring of Black Carbon
This research involved a suite of custom-built BC sensors developed and deployed by PSE collaborators at Lawrence Berkeley National Lab at UC Berkeley, alongside PSE’s Richmond Air Monitoring Network of low-cost PM and NO 2 sensors during two four-week periods in two seasons at 50 stationary locations in the adjacent cities of Richmond, North Richmond, and San Pablo, California, east of the San Francisco Bay.
Data Tool
Richmond-San Pablo Stationary Source Emissions Inventory
This mapping tool visualizes emissions data (criteria air pollutants and air toxics) from permitted facilities in Richmond-San Pablo, California. Users can select individual facilities, view their reported emissions, and filter and compare the results by pollutant, facility, and sector type.
Blog
Richmond Air Monitoring Network Insights
PSE in collaboration with the Asian Pacific Environmental Network (APEN), first began collecting air quality data in Richmond, North Richmond, and San Pablo in December 2019. Our multi-year air monitoring project is part of a larger effort to understand and improve air quality in Richmond-San Pablo.
Blog
Richmond, CA Air Monitors Show Cleaner Air During Bay Area COVID-19 Lockdown, With A Catch
Early evidence in 2020 suggested that the region’s shelter in place order, along with the associated social and economic changes, may have slowed the spread of the novel coronavirus, reducing cases of COVID-19 respiratory disease and likely saving many lives. PSE’s network of air monitors in Richmond, CA is showed that air quality in Richmond changed measurably during this time, though not entirely for the better.
Technical Report
