YODER – Next Wednesday, October 30, the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) is hosting a monitoring open house.

Starting at the Yoder Community Building, the DEQ will be discussing their upcoming air quality sensor implementation with interested community members. If the weather permits, they may even be visiting the expected sensor sites. 

This monitoring open house will start at 1:30 p.m. on October 30. 

Many Yoder community members have commented on heightened allergies and similar issues and for this reason, the DEQ will be putting up various sensors around the town to research the air quality. This will help understand if the issue is the wildfires, the dust, or if there’s silica in the air.

The equipment uses filters and takes samples of the air following an Environmental Protection Agency schedule. This schedule means the sensors will take a sample to read every three days for three months. 

The DEQ is currently waiting on the filters for these sensors. Once those are ready, they will set up the equipment and begin monitoring to see what is causing the poor air quality. 

It will not do anything to improve the air quality, which is a misconception about the filters. It will simply take readings to help the DEQ determine what the issue may be. 

Once they have this information, they can move forward on solutions. It will have to go one step at a time as they must gather information before implementing anything new. 

However, it is important to note, if the issue is wildfire, they cannot do very much to assist the area.  When it comes to dust from traffic, the county will have to work to find solutions to bring the dust levels down. 

There is no specific time frame for this project as they are waiting for the air filters. However, as soon as they receive them and get them put up, it will take three months for readings. These readings will be sent to a lab to evaluate, which will take around an additional two weeks to get results. 

The DEQ stated they are happy to be working with the community and are looking forward to finding some answers as well.