Hazardous outdoor air quality threatens student health—even indoors
Outside the Ansari Business Building on September 12, 2022 during Hazardous air quality conditions. Photo taken by Nick Stewart.
As hazardous air infused with smoke from the Mosquito Fire descended upon Reno, we once again received emails from the university encouraging us to "limit outdoor activities.”
This type of message has become common during late summer, when fire season is at its peak, as climate change and a century of poor forest management have begun to take their toll on the Sierra and surrounding areas.
As the global community begins to grapple with the increasingly extreme impacts of climate change, there are only two choices: mitigate or adapt.
Mitigation options are limited when it comes to reducing wildfire smoke in Reno. However, the university can and must adapt. There is a comprehensive network of air quality monitors that can be accessed by visiting purpleair.com. These sensors provide real-time air quality data for both indoor and outdoor air quality, and they provide the Air Quality Index (AQI) at their location. PurpleAir sensors measure the concentration of particulates of different sizes present in the air. Higher AQI means more particulates.
There are three sensors on campus: one inside the Leifson Physics Building, one outside of it, and one at the William Peccole Park baseball field. On Friday, September 16 at 7:5 a.m., the sensor located outside Leifson read an AQI of 318, or hazardous. And the indoor sensor?
Very unhealthy at 256.
This phenomenon, where there is little difference between the indoor and outdoor air quality, is surely not unique to the physics building. Many of us have seen the sliding doors at the Davidson Math and Science Center (DMC), or the Knowledge Center (KC) remain open almost constantly, and have smelled smoke inside the Jot Travis Building, Frandsen Humanities, or Cain Hall.
The truth is, most of the buildings on campus are so old they do not have modern air filtration systems. Building codes are updated frequently, and anything older than the KC (completed in 2008), or the Weigand Fitness Center (completed in 2017), for example, likely don’t have great filtration to begin with. But even for some of the newer buildings, such as the KC and the DMC, the entry points are so dysfunctional that the building might as well have none.
If the outdoor air quality is bad, the indoor air quality in your classroom is likely to be almost as bad. This means that when the outdoor AQI is 300, you are probably breathing air that is considered unhealthy.
During my observations of the sensors, the indoor air quality was, at times, worse than the outdoor air quality. At 7 p.m. on September 14, the outdoor AQI was 313 and the indoor AQI was 333.
According to historical data from PurpleAir.com air quality numbers were very similar between indoor and outdoor sensors.
Why does this matter? When you breathe air that has an unhealthy or hazardous AQI, you are breathing in tiny particles suspended in the air. These particles, known as PM2.5 (particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in diameter), enter your lungs and then your bloodstream. Breathing air with high PM2.5 concentrations is associated with heart attacks, aggravated asthma, coughing, decreased lung function, respiratory irritation, and premature death. The risk of health impacts increases with exposure, and exposure is amplified when the indoors offers no escape.
When the university tells us that classes are not canceled, and that we will be safe as long as we "limit outdoor activities,” they are lying.
The university must retrofit their buildings to improve the indoor air quality on campus. These fires are not going away, and we must adapt. If there is money for a $91 million dollar engineering building, a $94.1 million life sciences building, and a new NCAA ski team, there is money to keep students safe in the existing buildings.
Clean indoor air should be an expectation, not a hope.
Elsie Childress is a student at the University of Nevada, Reno earning a degree in rangeland management. She has served as president of the Winter Sports Club and CABNR Ambassadors, and was a member of the UNR Alpine Ski Team. She is graduating in December 2022 and will be pursuing a career with the US Department of Agriculture.
