Your guide to NYC's public proceedings.
AGENCY TESTIMONY
Air quality monitoring and associated challenges
0:11:53
ยท
65 sec
The testimony highlights the complexities and challenges associated with monitoring and responding to air quality issues in New York City.
- Forecasting air quality indices, especially for smoke, is difficult and complex
- Air quality can change rapidly and is affected by various unpredictable factors
- The city does not receive official notifications on air quality
- The Health Department monitors the air quality index daily and issues advisories when necessary
- Emergency Management disseminates air quality messaging through various channels
- Cooling center partners currently commit to providing air-conditioned spaces with seating and water, but not necessarily clean air
Christina Farrell
0:11:53
To provide some further context here, and as we testified in the two twenty twenty three air quality hearings, forecasting air quality indices, especially for smoke, is incredibly difficult and complex because forecasts are issued by the State Department of Environmental Conservation on the day of.
0:12:14
Air quality can change rapidly.
0:12:16
Predicting if air quality will improve or worsen can be difficult because of the unpredictable behavior of wildfires and factors such as wind, weather and terrain.
0:12:27
The city does not get an official notification on air quality.
0:12:31
Instead, the New York City Health Department monitors the air quality index daily and will issue a health advisory if there is a potential for New Yorkers to be affected by poor air quality.
0:12:41
Emergency management then pushes that messaging out through Notify NYC and other channels.
0:12:47
As noted above, the city does not operate cooling centers, but rather we rely on our partners.
0:12:53
These partners commit to provide air conditioning spaces with seating and water.