Studer Community Institute

County staff working to set up air alerts for Wedgewood area

February 23, 2015
/ Shannon Nickinson
/ community-dashboard

Later this week, Escambia County staff could have a mechanism in place to issue public alerts when air quality in the Wedgewood neighborhood exceeds certain levels. The public alert system was requested by Escambia County Commissioner Lumon May, who has pressed the issue of the residents concerns as commissioners have discussed tightening the rules around permitting borrow pits, land clearing debris pits and construction & demolition debris pits. At the Feb. 19 County Commission meeting, commissioners voted to extend a six-month moratorium on permitting for land clearing debris and construction debris pits. Permits on those facilities will not be issued until Aug. 21 while county staff work on tightening the rules regarding them. Read more about that process here. May asked that there be some kind of notification when the air quality test show the level of hydrogen sulfide present in the air exceeds safe levels. The Escambia County Health Department issued an alert on July 22 that prompted the cancellation of summer camp at the Wedgewood Community Center. “I hear the cries of that community and I think this is board is beginning to take the right steps,” May said during the meeting. The Health Department’s alert last summer cited county air quality monitoring devices finding that high levels of hydrogen sulfide, a gas that smells like rotten eggs, were present. At the time, Health Department director Dr. John Lanza advised that people experiencing respiratory symptoms to see a doctor for treatment and stay inside their homes. “While inside, people should close their windows, run their cooling/heating system, and change their system’s filter, as needed,” Lanza said then in a news release. “If symptoms persist while inside an air conditioned home, people may choose to leave the area until their symptoms are tolerable.” Those who have asthma or other chronic lung disease should follow their disease management plan, and should call their doctor if symptoms worsen. The maximum value detected in that time period was 0.340 parts per million, according to county environmental staff. These reading were collected at the northeast corner of the Rolling Hills Construction and Demolition Debris facility immediately adjacent to the fence line, south of the community center. The highest level county officials have detected at the community center since then was 0.590 ppm. County public information officer Kathleen Dough-Castro said staff were working this week to determine the details of how public alerts would be issued by the county staff and what residents would be told to do if the alert were sounded. In addition to the possible horn alert May mentioned in the meeting, Dough-Castro said the county could use the new Alert Escambia system, which can use a phone call, text message or email to alert residents who sign up for the service to the presence of an emergency. It is free for residents to sign up; click here to do so and learn more. That system, provided by Everbridge at a cost of $70,000 a year, is used jointly by county emergency services, the Health Department, ECUA, International Paper, Ascend Performance Materials and Gulf Power. “There have been reported levels higher than they were the day the health department shut down the community center, and health department hasn’t issued further alerts,” Dough-Castro said. “We also would have to determine what to tell people to do” when the alert is issued. Based on data the county has collected so far, such an alert system could sound more than once a week and could be at night, when the winds die down and the presence of the noxious gas tends to build up, Dough-Castro said. “It’s dropped off since October, but as we move into summer, we would expect to see it rise again,” she said, as warmer temperatures return and wind speed dies down, two factors that help dissipate the gas when it is present.

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County staff working to set up air alerts for Wedgewood area

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