Sandy installs air monitors to give residents clearer picture of quality
Dec 4, 2024, 10:12 PM | Updated: Dec 5, 2024, 10:33 am
SANDY— On Wednesday afternoon, city crews installed sensors to give residents a clearer picture of the air quality around them.
Martin Jensen, Sandy’s deputy chief administrative officer, said workers placed 13 monitors from Draper-based PurpleAir at different city-owned sites, including three inside City Hall, to hopefully allow people to make more informed choices.
“The more information that you have, the better,” Jensen said. “We just want to provide that to residents.”
A Sandy city worker installing one of the new sensors on city owned sites. (KSL TV)
Jensen said the city was a “black hole” on air quality maps, and leaders wanted to change that. Once the new monitors are up and running, he said they will feed data in real-time to a new page on Sandy City’s sustainability website and to all systems that utilize PurpleAir data.
City officials said the idea originated with city councilman Aaron Dekeyzer.
“It’s going to be so cool once the website goes live—residents will be able to log on and see our unique air quality shed and find ways they can participate,” Dekeyzer said. “The more we know about it, the more we can change our behavior to affect it.”
Aaron Dekeyzer explaining how the website will work with PurpleAir. (KSL TV)
Jensen said the units cost the city a couple hundred dollars each and were paid for by existing city funds.
“This is a very low-cost effort that we can take to help connect our residents with what’s going on in their city, in their neighborhood and provide more information for them,” Jensen said.
City officials said they hoped to have the live data displayed on the new city web page by Jan. 1, 2025.
