New monitors in GV measure air quality

The Green Valley Fire District has donated roof space for a set of air quality monitors implemented in response to last summer’s severe dust storms that covered homes with white dust from the Phelps Dodge Sierrita copper mine and had residents worrying about possible effects on their health.

The Green Valley Community Coordinating Council has been working with the Arizona Department of Environmental Quality to get permits and community support for the $40,000 monitoring station, which was installed last month on the roof of the GVFD Administration Building on Camino Encanto.

“This new site will help us monitor air quality in Green Valley, as well as track Phelps Dodge’s compliance with the its air quality permit,” said ADEQ’s Director Steven Owens in a statement.

Assistant Fire Chief Bill Bohling said that the fire district isn’t involved with the care of the monitors, but has provided indoor access to the monitors through a hatch in the roof.

“We are providing electricity for the air conditioned units, which ADEQ is reimbursing,” he said.

This is the second air quality monitoring station to be installed in Green Valley. There has been a monitoring station on the roof of the Joyner-Green Valley Library since 2001, when it was relocated from its location on Esperanza Boulevard, where it had been since 1989.

Each station measures two types of airborne particulates: dust from mining and construction sites referred to as PM10 particles, and finer particles found in truck and auto emissions, known as PM2.5 particles.

The monitor at the library measures and records PM10 particles every six days, while the new one does it hourly. Both monitoring sites measure PM2.5 particles hourly.

“The dust storm didn’t even touch the monitor that was near the Government Center, so we decided that it would be advantageous to have more than one monitoring station in different locations throughout the city,” said Russ Symes, president of the GVCCC.

“We asked the fire district if we could use their roof because it was the highest public building south of Continental Road,” he said.

The new monitoring station is much closer to the location of the 2006 dust storms, which were caused when high winds associated with monsoon rainstorms blew dust from the Phelps Dodge tailing impoundments. Residents in southern neighborhoods complained of breathing problems and inconvenience last year when they woke up to layers of white dust covering their roofs and cars.

The Arizona Department of Public Health Services determined that particulates from vehicle emissions are more dangerous than those from the tailing impoundments, which don’t contain toxic metals. Still, the Pima County Department of Environmental Quality has said that PM10 levels in Green Valley were below the health standards in the years 1989 through 2005.

jrichardson@gvnews.com | 547-9726