Comment by kingsloi | Hacker News Reader

Comment by kingsloi | Hacker News Reader

My little girl was born with really rare heart disease and a genetic condition, a boy a few streets behind us developed a really rare cancer.

- https://kingsley.sh/posts/2021/staggering-cost-of-surviving-...

- https://www.cnn.com/2020/11/18/us/ben-watkins-masterchef/ind...

This comes a year or so after a ArcelorMittal spilled ammonia and cyanide into Lake Michigan, and didn't sound the alarm for a few days. My wife and I were swimming in it during those days, and not to mention we live down wind from many other steel processing plants, oil refineries, mills of other descriptions, etc. https://elpc.org/projects/suing-lake-michigan-polluter-arcel...

I think during the early pandemic, EPA reporting restrictions were lowered? Given the shoddy response from the 2019 spill, I lost hope that any future spill would be reported, unless many fish/wildlife were also killed and spotted. https://www.brookings.edu/interactives/tracking-deregulation...

I run an air quality sensor: https://millerbeach.community and hoping to upgrade the sensor to track more pollutants. I'd love to test water quality of Lake Michigan, too. It's stuff like this that make me realise I'm doing a community service running my sensor.

I am sorry to hear about the personal impact to your family.

I think things like the air quality sensor you run are the actual solution here. In the absence of government officials doing their job properly, it is up to individuals to do it for themselves.

I wonder if there would be an open source solution for water quality testing and air quality testing, and if enough could be built by citizen hackers to create a distributed screen and alert system for pollutants.

Thank you, I appreciate it. I can only bring awareness to it, one man vs mega polluters is an impossible fight.

I live a stone's throw from the Lake Michigan shoreline, and would happily go out there daily to get a water sample, before my normal 9-5. If anyone is interested in hacking something together.

The air sensor I run is open source, for anyone interested.

The air sensor you use is PurpleAir, right? I found a sensor evaluation kit ZMOD4510-EVK-HC that has nitrogen dioxide and ozone sensors in it for around $112.

I like PurpleAir's crowdsourced air quality map[1]. Their sensors are one of the few that get down to the .3 micrometer level.

[1]https://www.purpleair.com/map

I agree! I love their open API, too!

I'm in the process of creating a 501c, and as part of my mission to raise awareness, I'm going to purchase 5-10 PurpleAir II and have them across Lake Michigan's entire shoreline. Or, that's part of my plan.

Ideally I'd run a more extensive sensor that tracks more than just PM, but I have a feeling pollution varies a lot in a small distance, we get lake effect weather, but what about people 5-10 miles south of me, do they have it better/worse, etc. I'd love to know those questions, and PurpleAir makes it semi affordable

The Purple Air network and their map is great. Each has two Plantower PMS5003 sensors for redundancy or accuracy. However, you can purchase the Plantower sensors yourself at about $15/unit, which could help with the costs when you're trying to roll out a lot of them.

If you used the Plantower PMS5003 sensor by itself how would you be able to distribute the data? PurpleAir has arrangement with government to have their data added to official measurements and can be seen on https://fire.airnow.gov

Purple Air already has pretty good coverage of Lake Michigan[1].

They also have good coverage in my area, but when wildfire smoke was bad in CA last year I spread out four PM2.5 sensors outside and two inside using Home Assistant/ESPHome. They respond to conditions very quickly, and I could see waves of smoke pass through.

Why does that matter? Keeping everything closed up and using an air purifier really improves the indoor air quality, but it also gets oppressive when you never exchange any fresh air. The nearest Purple Air sensor is 2000ft away on the other side of a hill. At times it might be an equivalent 80 AQI here and 200 AQI there or vice versa. It was convenient to know when opening a window to let out some stale air brought in less new smoke to have to filter.

A DIY approach isn't just cheaper, it allows the addition of other types of sensors like NO2, SO2 and ozone, and it makes fine-grained data collection affordable. Kingsloi expressed an interest in monitoring other pollutants in addition to PM2.5/PM10. In my particular case it is adding NDIR CO2 sensor inside.

All of these sensors have a limited life span. The $250 PurpleAir PA-II has a 1 year warranty. Even though it is likely to last a lot longer than that, it is a pretty large markup over $40 per setup, especially if Kingsloi's needs include other pollutant sensors. The Purple Air network is an advantage, but a nonprofit started by Kingsloi could partner with air quality organizations in Michigan or Illinois, too.

[1] https://www.purpleair.com/map?opt=1/m/i/mAQI/a10/cC0#6.34/43...

Is there something similar where you buy the separate parts yourself and put it together? 280 usd is quite steep.

> In the absence of government officials doing their job properly, it is up to individuals to do it for themselves.

I agree, I just wish the government would also not take my money to not do the job. Worse still is the false sense of safety instilled in the populace.

>"In the absence of government officials doing their job properly, it is up to individuals to do it for themselves."

Does 'it' include seizing the means of pollution and dismantling them brick by brick? Otherwise you'll be in same situation as my town in Russia, where everyone knowns about a polluting zink refunery upwind, and it's still giving thousands of people cancer.

I feel like in the US, public pressure can result in action against corporations that are killing people. The government has the legal framework to bring these types of cases, but may not always find every case on its own. The squeaky wheel gets the grease and all that.

It's not the case. Dupont poisoned thousands in WV and it took decades to punish them. Currently thousands of people are poisoned by pig feces, and there are no repercussions.

In Japan after 3/11 there was a citizen movement to track radiation because the govenment data, and collection was questionable. Im not.sure of the details, but the govt hit back pretty hard, and even introduced new official secrets legislation.

How did you set up that air quality sensor? Can you post a link to it?

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