A Win for the Winnebagos: Air Quality Monitoring to Protect Tribal Health
by Chris Hagerbaumer, OpenAQ Executive Director
I recently had the opportunity to visit with the Winnebago Tribe of Nebraska to learn about their air quality monitoring efforts. The Tribe is one of the 132 recipients of an American Rescue Plan (ARP) Enhanced Air Quality Monitoring for Communities grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Known as the Ho-Chunk in their language, the Winnebago Indians were displaced from their ancestral homes in central Wisconsin and northern Illinois to the Winnebago Indian Reservation in northeast Nebraska, an agricultural landscape west of the Missouri River.
The Winnebago Tribe is a sovereign nation that protects the health and well-being of its people through many programs. One health concern is air pollution. Asthma rates on the reservation are above the national average, with approximately 900 individuals being treated for asthma at the Twelve Clans Unity Hospital.
To improve their capacity to address air pollution, the Tribe hired their first air quality specialist, Kurt Lyons, in 2020. I visited with Kurt to learn about his work, accompanied by my mother, who lives in the nearby city of Wayne and serves on the Wayne Green Team, as well as the assistant director of the Northeast Nebraska Public Health Department.
Because they have no local air quality data, the Tribe applied for the ARP grant to install a reference-grade monitor (the type of monitor that meets the highest scientific standard for air quality monitoring). It will monitor PM2.5 (particles that are 2.5 micrometers or less in diameter). The closest reference-grade air monitors are one in Sioux City, Iowa, which monitors ozone levels and is a little more than 18 miles away as the crow flies, and one in Vermillion, South Dakota, which monitors ozone and PM2.5 and is about 71 miles away.
Sources of particulate matter in the area include agricultural processes that kick tiny particles into the air, including CAFOs (concentrated animal feeding operations), two coal-fired power plants, a railroad, and dirt roads. Only 10–13% of the roads on the reservation are paved; the rest are composed of gravel, dirt, and/or sand. In addition, air quality can be impacted by prescribed burning and wildfires, most recently by the wildfires burning in Western Canada this spring.
The Tribe had a meteorological station collecting weather data, aka a MET station, but it stopped functioning, most likely taken out by lighting, a common phenomenon on the Great Plains. So, beyond having a Mercury Wet Deposition monitor, which measures mercury concentrations in rainwater and whose data the Tribe shares with the National Atmospheric Deposition Program, Kurt had to start from scratch regarding ambient air monitoring.
First, Kurt had to find a location for a new station that would meet EPA siting criteria. The land on which the Tribe’s MET station stood had been repurposed, so a new site had to be found. Kurt located and got approval for the new site and secured additional grant funding for development, which included an access road, county power hook up, a walk-in shelter, a 10-meter tower, a security fence, and cameras. The Walk-in shelter houses the equipment needed to read the data produced by the air and weather equipment located on top of the shelter and from the tower next to the shelter. Kurt carefully researched vendors for the meteorological transmitter, PM2.5 instrumentation, and other necessary equipment and was able to repurpose some equipment purchased with a smaller direct ARP grant. He learned that aluminum wiring from near the base of the wind tower to the top, with copper wiring for grounding, is a better deterrent for lightning than pure copper wiring.
As soon as Kurt has procured a couple of additional parts, the station will be up and running, collecting data on PM2.5 and several weather parameters.
Kurt expressed gratitude for the assistance he received through both the EPA and the Institute for Tribal Environmental Professionals (ITEP). ITEP is part of Northern Arizona University (NAU) and focuses its support on U.S. Tribal air programs. Under ITEP is the Tribal Air Monitoring Support (TAMS) team that gives technical support on air monitoring operations, instruments, and equipment.
Together, the EPA, ITEP, and TAMS offer an assortment of educational opportunities on things like grant management, air program framework work plans, training courses for Quality Assurance Project Planning (QAPPs), and ambient air monitoring theory. NAU holds an annual National Tribal Forum on Air Quality, a meeting of the minds for tribes advancing air quality protection, climate change awareness, and environmental action. ITEP offers the Tribal Data Toolbox, or the QREST (Quality Review and Exchange System for Tribes) data management tool. Participating tribes upload their raw data and then QREST guides them through data management, including quality checks and how to archive data. Reports and charts can also be generated from the data to show historical trends and changes.
Kurt also hopes to share the Tribe’s air quality data with AirNow, the EPA’s publicly accessible air quality data system. OpenAQ aggregates data from AirNow, so this data will be available on our data platform as well.
Another aspect of Kurt’s job is to communicate air quality data and solutions to the public. He has launched a Winnebago Tribe air quality website, which will evolve over time, and plans to develop an “Air Quality Index (AQI) Globe,” an aluminum-framed sphere spiraled with LED lights, to be located on the roof of one of the Tribe’s buildings. The AQI globe will change color as the air quality changes, matching the EPA AQI colors, which range from green (good air quality) to maroon (hazardous air quality). Kurt got the idea from KCAU-TV’s Weather Ball on the Ho-Chunk building in Sioux City, which changes color depending on the temperature. Kurt will also conduct a media campaign to communicate what the AQI colors mean and the steps residents can take to protect themselves if the air quality is poor.
With air quality monitoring and communications, the Tribe hopes to educate not only tribal members but others living in the area and to support air quality solutions that will improve the health and quality of life for everyone in this bucolic corner of Nebraska.
Congratulations to the Winnebago Tribe for securing funding to monitor air quality, and thank you to Kurt for spending time with us as we learned about the process of siting a reference-grade monitoring system.
