This is a story about why it is important to be persistent.

This is a story about why it is important to be patient.

This is a story about citizen science.

This is a story about clean air.

This is a story about clean cars.

This is a story about Clean Air Carolina.

It all began almost exactly one year ago as I write this.

I was at the LEAF festival in Black Mountain, NC chatting with Kat, a naturalist friend of mine.  As nature nerds often do we bounced around from one environmental topic to another and soon we found ourselves focusing on air quality.  I knew Kat worked hard every day to impart nature, wildlife, and environmental knowledge to people of all ages so I brought up the Clean Air Carolina Air Keepers project.  As an Air Keeper, I am working with Clean Air Carolina to install air quality monitors that measure particulate matter in every county in North Carolina.  These crowd science powered devices allow citizens to monitor their air quality in real-time keeping us more aware of what is in our air so we can take action when needed to keep our air clean and healthy.  Kat’s position as a naturalist at a unique high elevation community – located not that far from Mount Mitchell, the highest mountain east of the Rockies – put her in an excellent position to monitor particulate matter at higher elevations in WNC and share that knowledge with her clients.  She liked the idea of installing an air monitor in her community but to do this she would need to get clearance from the POA.

This took a while.

By spring 2019 clearance had been granted so I mailed her an air monitor and she and her IT guy attempted to install it.  The install failed.  I suspected at the time that the IT guy was not familiar with the install process – which can be a bit tricky.

Summer came with all its fun, hard work, and mayhem and the high elevation air monitor installation at Kat’s place was forced to the back burner.

Late summer rolled in and the schedule thinned so in mid-August my good friend Jim and I jumped into his Honda Clarity PHEV and headed out on the road to meet Kat and see what we could do about the air monitor.

When we arrived on-site we attempted to get the air monitor to connect to the internet – no luck. I tried several monitors I had brought with me as backups – none of them would connect.

I knew the monitor had worked before I had sent it to her so I did not believe it was faulty so we decided to go ahead and mount the air monitor at its permanent location in a gazebo on the top of a nearby knob.  I also had high hopes that this location would have less internet traffic than the main building so therefore might be a little easier for us to connect and get the device online.

We journeyed up to the site, a beautiful, rustic gazebo overlooking the valley below – words just do not do it justice so here is a photo of the view.

We installed the air monitor in a sheltered location with good airflow then attempted to connect it up to the internet.  At first, it looked like it was connected so we departed the site.  Upon getting back home and checking on the recently connected monitor I discovered that it was in fact not connected.

I contacted Kat again and asked her to check to be sure the monitor was in fact plugged in – it was.  Bizarre.

A few weeks later I made another 65-mile trip back to the site and checked the monitor again.  It did, in fact, have power but despite my efforts, I could not get it to connect to the internet.  I called the community internet provider only to find out that their wifi system was 5ghz – the air monitors only work with 2.4ghz networks.  At least we now knew the problem.

I asked the IT guys what my options were and they had a solution – they could tweak the system on their end and remotely add a dedicated 2.4ghz network – amazing technology!

After they adjusted a few things I made yet another trip back to the site – this time in my new 2019 Chevrolet Bolt EV.

NOTE: If you are wondering how electric cars fit into this story well, that is simple – they do not emit toxic fossil fuel emissions into our shared atmosphere so they help to keep our air clean and healthy – especially when they are charged by renewable energy sources. 

This time I was able to connect the air monitor to the network in less than 10 minutes and all was good to go!  We were now online and fully operational!

The Slickrock Mountain air monitor has been online for a few weeks now and the big picture shows us the air quality at the State’s highest air monitor is so far very clean with an average EPA PM2.5 AQI of 7.9.

Overall ENP has worked with Clean Air Carolina and eleven different non-profit, for-profit, educational organizations and private individuals to install Purple Air air monitors at 11 different locations in Western Noth Carolina.  Monitors we have installed include the following.

ENP/Trails Science (east side of DuPont Forest)

Pisgah Forest

PARI

Walnut Branch (Almond)

Cherokee (currently offline but will be replaced in mid-November 2019)

Highlands Biological Station

Hendersonville

Western Carolina University

Green Hill

Wildcat Mountain (Murphy)

Slickrock Mountain (Burnsville)

Coming soon: Tusquittee, NC.

Below is a map of many of our WNC area installed air monitors

The view from Slickrock Mountain – look close and you will see the newest Clean Air Carolina Air Monitor.

If you are interested in becoming an Air Keeper with Clean Air Carolina please visit the Clean Air Carolina website and help us all become more air aware!