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Sandy Journal

Sandy City to install air quality monitors to keep residents informed

Oct 07, 2024 04:01PM ● By Rebecca Olds

Sandy City Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Martin Jensen and Councilmember Aaron Dekeyzer met with PurpleAir founder Adrian Dybwad and another representative in May to start the partnership between the city and the company. (Courtesy of Aaron Dekeyzer)

It’s no secret that Utah struggles with clean air. 

What with the valley that traps in the smog of the commuters’ cars that prompt the “consider working from home” or “travel air-wise” signs that sometimes adorn the freeway.

In a step toward helping Sandy residents be more conscience of the air quality, Sandy City Councilmember Aaron Dekeyzer along with city administration initiated a new project that will place 20 mug-sized air monitors around the city. Sandy City is the first municipality to have a partnership with Draper-headquartered PurpleAir to localize the monitoring of air quality and give more accurate safety levels. 

“In our region, air quality is a problem, and so, as someone who’s sustainability oriented, I want our city to be a leader in that,” Dekeyzer said. “[To] show our residents that we care about it…we’re gonna do something about it.”

Dekeyzer said he’s been speaking with PurpleAir since around March to get the program started in Sandy. It’s the first time PurpleAir has partnered with a municipality to monitor local air quality of an entire city.

PurpleAir has specialized in local air quality monitors for both indoors and outdoors since 2015 and currently has more than 35,000 sensors in more than 130 countries around the world. There are 500 in the Salt Lake Valley alone. Their data is used alongside data from the United States Environmental
Protection Agency.

Founder of PurpleAir Adrian Dybwad, who moved from South Africa to the Point of the Mountain in 2008, said the company’s partnership with Sandy makes sense because of the emphasis the company has placed on the community since day one.

“PurpleAir is all about local, local jobs, employing local 


people, making what we do here in Draper in Utah, we’re very proud of that heritage, of everything we do,” Dybwad said. “It made sense to go to a local city council to see if they were interested in figuring out, how PurpleAir [can] be of use to a city council or a community like Sandy City, so we want to have them be the first, and be able to pioneer and help to develop a program other cities find useful.”

Dybwad hopes to see more cities follow Sandy’s model.

Dekeyzer said the cost of the air monitors to be distributed throughout the city will be as little as $5,000 for all 20 monitors that will last anywhere from two to four years. But Dybwad said it’s likely the sensors could last upward of five years. 

That price also includes a public dashboard on the city’s website which will allow residents to see real-time data to influence their outside activities.

Sandy’s Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Martin Jensen has been leading the project and said the goal is to “allow residents to make decisions that will make their lives better.”

“This could be to either stay inside and not exercise when air quality is poor or perhaps work from home when the air quality is poor so they are reducing trips and emissions,” he told the City Journals in an email.

Once residents are able to see the air quality and make decisions about what activities to do, Dybwad said, said those decisions will actually better the air quality.

“By measuring [air quality] and having a sensor in your home, you tend to change your behavior—don’t use the frying pan as hot as you used to, or you don’t burn your toast as often—you tend to be more aware of the actions you’re taking that are generating it,” he said.

“The same is true with outdoor air quality to a smaller extent, or it needs bigger interaction. And that’s why the more people that know about air quality and are looking at air quality, the more people talking about it, the more chance there is of it becoming a bigger deal for your authorities, and they might do something about cleaning it up,” Dybwad said.

Jensen said current plans are to have the monitors installed and connected in Sandy during the fall, “prior to the winter months when our valley typically sees the worst air quality.” λ