Licking County residents have voiced their concerns about potential water and air contamination in the face of ongoing development around Intel’s $28 billion chip manufacturing plant and construction projects from Microsoft, Facebook, Google and Amazon, with little response from the major corporations permanently altering the community’s landscape.
Now, residents are taking air quality testing into their own hands.
Ken Apacki, a Granville resident and member of Clean Air and Water for Alexandria and St. Albans Township, is leading a community air monitoring network to get baseline testing before the Intel plant is up and running. The air monitoring network is a collection of SimpleAQ air monitors that will monitor ambient air quality. This initiative is not funded by the government and is entirely citizen-run.
Apacki said this is the initial step to getting baseline testing. Baseline testing creates a reference point – a benchmark to measure against later when Intel’s chips are rolling off the production lines.
That means down the road, if air quality measurements begin to change dramatically, the corporations causing the change can take appropriate action.
“We’re starting small, and we’re learning,” Apacki said. “$20 billion dollars came to Intel, but what came to Licking County to protect the community?”
Apacki isn’t the only person in the county worried about air quality. Hebron Mayor Valerie Mockus has expressed concern about emissions coming from Freepoint Eco-Systems, a plastics pyrolysis facility located in Union Township, very close to the center of Hebron.
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“My understanding is that they’re expecting no impact on our air quality, but I think residents would feel better if they knew that there weren’t any new pollutants entering the air,” she said about the facility.
Mockus wants to make sure the hazardous air isn’t directed towards Hebron’s middle and high schools that are southeast of Freepoint’s facility. Her office has been looking into placing air quality monitors around the village, just to ensure that there is no risk to any residents. At this point, though, Mockus said the village has not made concrete plans to do so.
“It’s an actual apparatus that we could have throughout the village to just monitor the quality of the air. And that’s probably good practice, especially when you have industrial work occurring, because not every contaminant has an odor,” she said.
Tracee Laing, a Granville resident, said that Licking County Soil and Water has a handle on water monitoring, but no one is monitoring regional air quality.
So she got in touch with Ben Li-Sauerwine, a founder of SimpleAQ, who provided her with affordable air monitors. She hopes that if they know community members are paying attention, then Intel will be careful.
“I mostly want to make sure that Intel knows that we are organized and we’re watching,” Laing said.
These air monitors allow the air quality data to be free, accessible, and consistent to the public.
Li-Sauerwine created the SimpleAQ monitor because he could not find an affordable air monitor on the market that was customizable for testing different pollutants. Some people may want to test the air for specific pollutants like carbon monoxide, hydrogen fluoride or phosphine.
“Monitoring couldn’t be one size fits all,” Li-Sauerwine said.
The most basic air quality monitor from SimpleAQ costs $130. Li-Sauerwine charges exactly what it costs to make the monitor, and he makes no profit by selling monitors to individual citizens.
“I don’t want to charge people who just want to protect themselves,” he said.
The data from the air monitors belongs to the user. The data can be posted on the Simple AQ website or kept private to the user.
“I want users to have full control over their data,” Li-Sauerwine said.
Right now the air quality numbers on the Simple AQ website are not clear. Li-Sauerwine said they are working on an educational component so that the numbers are more useful to users.
Ronda Saunders, a Granville township resident, raises cattle on her farm. She has noticed the degradation of air quality because the traffic has gotten worse. Saunders hopes that air monitors will be distributed throughout the county.
“We’ve got other polluters coming in just besides Intel,” Saunders said.
Li-Sauerwine said a successful air monitoring network should include people who are close to where someone is exposed to fumes. The more air monitors, the better the network will work. Li-Sauerwine said that the monitor will even pick up emissions from cars.
“You want sensors, probably at least a couple dozen, distributed around that plant (Intel),” he said.
The more air monitors, the more accurately citizens can point out where the poor air quality is stemming from.
Caroline Zollinger and Ellie Owen write for TheReportingProject.org, the nonprofit news organization of Denison University’s Journalism program, which is supported by generous donations from readers. Sign up for The Reporting Project newsletter here.