PurpleAirs in Schools — a Department of Environmental Quality program now in its third year — seeks to close the net with hundreds of low-cost, but effective, air quality sensors installed at high schools across the state. They track PM2.5, tiny, inhalable particles that are hazardous to human health and are associated with wildfire smoke.
The Montana High School Association and the University of Montana have also partnered with DEQ on the state-wide project. Schools do not have to pay for the sensors, which are covered by a federal grant.
DEQ has high-cost, high-quality air quality sensors in many of Montana’s major cities. But smoke levels can vary widely across the state, and for residents in rural areas, their judgment could be based on whether they can see mountains in the distance.
It’s also important for high school athletics, one of the cultural backbones of the state. Football, cross country, soccer, volleyball and golf are all played by high schoolers across Montana in the fall, and figuring out how to keep them safe is a priority for state and local leaders as well.
Games, matches and meets are routinely canceled across the state each year, and athletic directors are asked to make tough decisions, especially as their schools jockey for post-season positioning in the latter half of the fall.
Indoor versus outdoor smoke levels are also a concern, which is why the schools involved in the program are given two detectors — one for the inside, and one for the outside.
It’s become nationally notable, with an American Lung Association report highlighting the program this spring, and the state DEQ has fielded calls from peers in other states asking for information on how their program works. Montana also hosted a regional high school meeting, which the state gave a presentation at.
“I don’t know if that’s a good or bad thing, but because of all the smoke, we have maybe set a standard that other states can follow,” said Greta Buehler, an associate director with the Montana High Schools Association.
'We're Gonna Provide It'
PurpleAirs in Schools dates back to a Biden-era program, the American Rescue Plan Act, which included grants for community air monitoring.
Wildfire smoke is the pollutant of greatest concern in the state, said Kelly Dorsi, a supervisor in Montana’s Air Quality Bureau, which brings challenges.
“Unlike an industrial source, we can’t permit it, we can’t control it,” Dorsi said. “So we were trying to think of a way that we could do something that was health protective and would benefit the citizens of Montana, even though we have no control over that.”
The way DEQ can help mitigate the problem, Dorsi said, is to get more information to the public. That’s where the idea of broadening air quality detection was born. The original grant was for $425,000, Dorsi said.
About two-thirds of school communities in Montana have signed up for sensors, with Kari Nauman, who helps run the DEQ program, saying they’re trying to get the remaining districts into the program. In Montana’s more rural corners, schools are sometimes combined or may be split between towns.
“We originally targeted high schools because they’re community hubs, but not every place has a high school, so some of those are middle schools,” Nauman said. “We’re not actively saying it’s for any school, but if a community reaches out and they don’t have a sensor, we’re gonna provide it."
Richey-Lambert High School co-activities director Kara Triplett knows this problem well. Richey and Lambert are co-op schools in towns about 25 miles apart. Conditions are sometimes different at the schools and PurpleAir has given them a tool to help make decisions, Triplett said.
“We have run into situations where the air quality has not been great at certain times, and I think has expanded into some sports seasons where we hadn’t seen it before,” Triplett said. “And so there was a really big need for that. School systems are pretty concerned.”
Triplett noted one particularly difficult decision several years ago, where spring smoke was impacting divisional track. Richey-Lambert, a Class-C school, has an all-weather track, meaning it’s often needed to host — some small rural schools across the state use dirt or gravel tracks to practice, meaning meets can’t always be easily shifted.
The schools didn’t have a PurpleAir sensor then and Triplett said it was one of the toughest decisions as activities director. They ended up adjusting the schedule to later in the day, after it was slated to start in the morning.
“It was such a hard call to make, because you can’t push divisional track too far beyond the date that we had set, because we’re moving into high school graduations,” Triplett said.
Buehler said the live smoke information helps school activity directors across the state make informed decisions about when to cancel or move games and practices. If a school is relying on an air sensor almost a hundred miles away, their conditions may be very different.
“We don’t want students out there jeopardizing their health for practices and games if we can help it,” Buehler said.
For example, there are permanent, regulatory-grade sensors in Billings, Lewistown, and Havre, with temporary sensors in Glasgow and Glendive.
PurpleAir sensors in Winnett, Winfred, Malta, Fort Peck, Hysham, Forsyth, Rosebud and Miles City help track the air in the thousands of square miles between those regulatory-grade permanent and temporary sensors.
It’s also being done at a fraction of the cost. Bigger sensors can run in the range of tens of thousands of dollars. PurpleAir sensors are $300 each and with a corrective algorithm applied, are about 90% as effective as the bigger sensors, Nauman and Dorsi said.
The readings from the outdoor sensors are currently available on the Environmental Protection Agency’s smoke map website.
Because DEQ’s mandate is “ambient” air quality, the indoor sensors don’t technically fall in their purview. That’s where the University of Montana partnership begins to come in, said Professor Curtis Noonan, who is with the School of Public & Community Health Sciences.
“By doing that, we’re able to look at the infiltration of wildfire smoke or other pollutants, other contributors to particulate matter, from outdoor to indoor environments,” Noonan said. “It’s really helpful for the schools to just know what the outdoor environments like, and then better understand how that outdoor air impacts the indoor air quality.”
Noonan added it’s also been helpful “merging expertise” between the school and the state, which included helping code the correction algorithm. Schools get an indoor and outdoor reading on a dashboard that’s set up as part of their entrance into the program.
“In order for the schools to get data that is interpretable and usable for them, the data first has to run through this correction factor, and then it gets turned back out to the schools,” Noonan said.
'Readily Available Data'
The improved ability for small communities to access localized air quality data stretches beyond athletic events, into science curriculum and generally better understanding of smoke conditions.
The University of Montana even has a program dedicated to this, called Students Participating in Air Research and Knowledge Translation.
“Montana’s model demonstrates how collaboration can transform low-cost sensor networks from short-term pilot projects into durable public-health infrastructure—capable of adapting to increasing wildfire impacts while continuing to serve under-resourced communities over the long term,” a report from the American Lung Association notes.
Triplett added it’s made schools across the state become more educated on what’s in the air.
“I think it’s forced us to learn a lot more,” Triplett said.
Other benefits, including classroom lessons extending more information on air quality to local communities, have also been felt, including in Arlee.
Arlee was one of the first schools to get a PurpleAir sensor, and is now part of the DEQ’s larger program. Prior to the larger DEQ program being started, students at the school petitioned the school board after the indoor air quality sensor picked up harmful air particulates stemming from a coal burning furnace. In 2018, Arlee High School upgraded to an all-electric system.
“Science teachers and students can access that, just from all the high schools around the state,” Noonan said. “That’s just readily available data that they have access to.”
Montana was one of six case studies highlighted in the American Lung Association report, called “Something in the Air” which they publish routinely, Will Barrett an assistant vice president of the organization said.
And the DEQ has been reached out to by agencies in Colorado, Idaho and Arizona. California and South Dakota have also looked to implement similar strategies.
“A lot of work goes into planning, developing, implementing and understanding air quality data,” Barrett said in an interview. “And I think that this, the programs we’ve highlighted, kind of shine a light on what’s possible, and hopefully elevate some of those to more public awareness of what’s going on.”
This story first appeared in the Daily Montanan. Read the original here.
