DENR initiates air quality monitoring system in Mindanao

Environment and Natural Resources Secretary Heherson Alvarez recently announced the operations of an Ambient Air Quality Monitoring with Telemetry System as a joint undertaking of the Environmental Management Bureau (EMB) Region 10 office, with the Xavier University (Ateneo de Cagayan) as the first ever in Mindanao.

This Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) initiative, which seeks to support the implementation of the Clean Air Act, is directly complying with law’s directive of establishing airsheds in the region. The monitoring system continuously measures air pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen dioxide, ozone, benzene, toluene, P-xylene and particulate matter of 10u diameter (PM-10), on real time basis. The system also has the capability to detect meteorological conditions such as wind speed and direction, weather temperature, barometric pressure and humidity, sufficiently able to tell whether the air is safe or not for breathing.

Director Julian Amador of the EMB central office, and also the project director of the Metro Manila Air Quality Improvement Sector Development Program (MMAQISDP), emphasized the significance of the telemetry system in monitoring the air quality levels pursuant to the mandatory requirements of the Clean Air Act. As such, he also explained that the EMB is aiming to acquire more equipment for its regional offices, and that Region 7 will be the next recipient of assistance.

Installed at Xavier University in Cagayan de Oro City, EMB Region 10 director Sabdullah Abubacar explained that the Air Quality Monitoring Station in the city is the first state-of-the-art Open Path Air Quality Monitoring Station the country. The open path monitor system has been acquired over the conventional system of monitoring air quality not only because it is widely used in other countries worldwide, but due to its various advantages.

Director Abubacar added that the system is simple and straightforward with the visible lights received and transferred to an analyzer just like a computer, where it can measure thousands of liters of the air per minute giving faster measurement and results than the conventional type.

Apart from the functional advantage, it is also a lower cost maintenance system with an annual operating cost of approximately P75,000 unlike previous conventional system of higher operations and maintenance costs.

Director Abubacar also cited that the air quality results shown by this monitor can be displayed not only in the EMB Central Office in Visayas Avenue, Quezon City every hour of the day, even in the Internet website, making real time pollution index monitor possible for dissemination to the media and the general public.

In another development, Metro Manila and the nearby provinces will soon be designated as air quality monitoring sites as ambient air data are being worked out to raise the awareness and consciousness of the general public on the status of our air environment, as disclosed recently by Director Amador.

The proposed sites are University of Sto. Tomas, Manila; Batangas City; Dasmarinas, Cavite or the Cavite Export Processing Zone Administration; AGROMET station of PAGASA, Los Baños, Laguna; along the DZRB Transmitter in the Philippine Information Agency, Quezon City; the Protected Areas and Wildlife Bureau, Quezon City; Pamantasan ng Lunsod ng Maynila, Mapua Institute of Technology or Lawton, Manila; Ateneo, Quezon City; Clark, Pampanga and Marikina City.

The sites identified above were considered because they conform to the criteria of either heavy industrialization, high traffic density and commercial or residential areas.

The air monitoring equipment to be purchased for these sites shall continuously measure pollutants such as sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides, carbon monoxide, ozone, total suspended particulates, particulate matter of 10 microns in diameter, and lead. The stations are expected to be equipped with data logger and a data acquisition/communication, and meteorological monitoring system.