Does Community Air Monitoring Lead to Better Environmental Policy? Evaluating AB 617 in Richmond, California

Abstract

Community air monitoring, publicly-operated low-cost air monitors to gather local, real-time pollution data, is one method to potentially improve air quality. Regulatory agencies are increasingly funding community monitoring to complement sparse networks of regulatory monitors. However, data from low-cost monitors often faces challenges about data quality, contributing to monitoring data seldom leading to policy change. If community air monitoring is truly an avenue for improving air quality rather than increasing awareness, I argue this data must drive regulatory change. In California, Assembly Bill (AB) 617 created a comprehensive program of public involvement in designing plans to install additional air monitors and subsequently reduce emissions. Here, I analyze key AB 617 documents from Richmond, California to trace whether new air monitoring data is linked to strategies to reduce emissions. I find most monitoring data is not used and rarely connected to regulatory change. I also classify the types of actions within Richmond’s emissions reduction plan, finding relatively few new policies that are enforceable and ready for near-term implementation. Since community monitoring data is largely unused, changes in environmental regulation may be more likely if new regulatory monitors are installed instead. Regulators should also make it clear to community members from the outset that low-cost monitoring data will not lead to new regulation at this point. An alternative, potentially more effective method to improving air quality may be using new monitoring data to pursue change through media advocacy and direct pressure on industry rather than going through state institutions.