US EPA recently launched a new air quality outreach project called Village Green. The project involves placing air quality monitoring stations in local communities across the country. The monitoring system is built into a park bench and includes measurements of basic meteorological conditions (e.g., air temperature, relative humidity, wind speed/direction) as well as O3 and PM2.5 concentrations. The pilot Village Green station is located outside of the South Regional Library in Durham, NC. One of my friends lives in Durham and sent me a photo of the station (below). These stations are designed for education and outreach, so they are not used for regulatory purposes. One of the most recent stations to join the project is located in downtown Philadelphia, in Independence National Park near the National Constitution Center. This station is being administered by the Air Management Services (AMS) division of the Department of Public Health of the City of Philadelphia in partnership with US EPA. There was a ribbon cutting ceremony for the station on May 1, to coincide with Air Quality Awareness week. You can find the current weather and air quality observations from the Philadelphia Village Green station here. Congratulations to AMS and US EPA for bringing this exciting new outreach project to Philadelphia! Anything we can do to raise awareness of air quality is a great thing.

Thanks to Kerrie Schmehl for the photo of the Durham Village Green Station.