said after the explosion that the air was safe to breathe, based on handheld monitors and on-site monitoring systems<\/a>.<\/p>\n\u201cThere were the large, black, billowing clouds that just so happened to be drifting toward New Jersey \u2014 basically across South Philadelphia \u2014 and didn\u2019t actually pass over any of the [city\u2019s stationary] air monitors,\u201d Howarth said.<\/p>\n
Garrow said the data the city collected at the time indicated no impact on the air quality within the neighboring community, and that the new network of monitors would provide a more detailed look during any similar situation in the future.<\/p>\n
Still, the new monitors don\u2019t measure every air pollutant. Howarth noted they don\u2019t capture volatile organic chemicals or carcinogens. She also worries the hourly data updates could mask shorter-term spikes.<\/p>\n
Howarth hopes the monitors will illuminate disparities in air quality between neighborhoods, created by the combination of traffic and industrial pollution.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf someone lives in an intersection where there\u2019s lots of idling cars, their air pollution may be significantly worse than someone living a few blocks away,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
City public health officials say the Breathe Philly website can help people with respiratory or cardiovascular conditions make their own decisions about when to avoid strenuous activity outside, close windows or stay indoors. Raval-Nelson said the city made sure to place sensors throughout Philadelphia, especially in areas that have \u201calways faced more environmental burdens than environmental goods.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cKnowledge is power,\u201d Raval-Nelson said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Faster air quality data for public health decisions Raval-Nelson said the new monitors will inform the city\u2019s public…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":117181,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[5051,69,71,70,5206],"class_list":{"0":"post-117180","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-air-pollution","9":"tag-philadelphia","10":"tag-philadelphia-headlines","11":"tag-philadelphia-news","12":"tag-whyy-news-climate-desk"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117180","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=117180"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/117180\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/117181"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=117180"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=117180"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=117180"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}