Show Notes
Ninety-four percent of Wisconsinites live in an area that meets all federal air quality standards. Fifty short years ago, that wasn’t necessarily the case.
The first Earth Day in 1970 paved the way for a couple of landmark environmental initiatives, including the signing of the Clean Air Act. The Clean Air Act is widely considered one of the most comprehensive and successful pieces of legislation ever signed into law.
We continue to benefit from it today. The act has achieved tremendous reductions in air pollution, protecting public health and saving lives, while allowing for economic growth and development.
To learn a bit more about what the Clean Air Act is and its impact on the reduction of air pollution throughout Wisconsin, we sat down with leading air quality experts Gail Good and Brad Pierce. Gail Good is the Director of the Air Management program at the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources and a co-chair for the National Association of Clean Air Agencies (NACAA) Emissions and Modeling Committee. Brad Pierce is the Principal Investigator of RAQMS (Real-time Air Quality Modeling System) and Director of the Space, Science and Engineering Center at the University of Wisconsin – Madison.
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TRANSCRIPT
Announcer: [
00:00:00] Welcome to Wisconsin DNR's Wild Wisconsin - Off The Record podcast. Information straight from the source.
Katie Grant: [
00:00:11] Welcome back to another episode of Wild Wisconsin - Off The Record. I'm your host DNR's digital media coordinator, Katie Grant. The first Earth Day was a turning point for environmentalism in our country. The awareness it braised resulted in real changes, including the creation of the environmental protection agency and the signing of the Clean Air and Clean Water Acts.
Without these acts, there were few things in place to limit pollution. As a state, Wisconsin has made major progress in the last 50 years when it comes to air quality. To help us celebrate Clean Air Month and the 50th anniversary of the Clean Air Act, we wanted to learn a bit more about how the air was in Wisconsin in 1970, how it is today and how you can help us keep the air clean for the future.
On today's episode, we sat down with Gail Good and Brad Pierce. Gail is the director of the air management program here at the DNR. In addition to her work for the DNR, she is a co-chair for the National Association of Clean Air Agencies' emissions and modeling committee. Brad is the director of the Space Science and Engineering Center at UW -Madison.
He has more than 25 years of experience in the design, development, and execution of global atmospheric models. Since 2001, he has been the principal investigator of the real-time air quality monitoring system, which has been used globally since 2012 to make real-time air quality predictions. Sit back and listen in to learn more about air quality in Wisconsin and hear the answers to questions you asked about it on Instagram.
Gail Good: [
00:01:53] My name is Gail good. I'm the director of the Air management program here at DNR.
Brad Pierce: [
00:01:58] And I'm Brad Pierce. I'm the director of the Space Science and Engineering Center at UW-Madison. And I'm an atmospheric scientist.
Katie Grant: [
00:02:07] Fantastic. So we are here today to talk about the 50th anniversary of the Clean Air Act. So what is the Clean Air Act?
Gail Good: [
00:02:16] The Clean Air Act is one of the most successful pieces of federal legislation that's ever been enacted. You mentioned it was put into place 50 years ago, and that's, that's true actually at the end of this year, right on December 31st, 1970. So when the Clean Air Act was signed into existence, it's gone through several amendments. Clean Air Act, um, was designed really to, uh, cut down on air pollution while growing the economy.
And the benefit of that, the cutdown and air pollution is that it's actually saved lives over the 50 years it's been in existence.
Katie Grant: [
00:02:49] Fantastic. Was it just for Wisconsin or is it a federal thing that covers every state?
Gail Good: [
00:02:55] The Clean Air Act is a federal piece of legislation, so it does indeed cover every state.
Katie Grant: [
00:03:00] When it was enacted, what did it initially mean for residents of Wisconsin and I guess the entire country.
Brad Pierce: [
00:03:07] From personal experience?
Brad Pierce: [
00:03:09] So I remember driving, I grew up in Minneapolis and we had family out East. I remember driving through Gary, Indiana on the way out East in the, in the early seventies and you could smell Gary, Indiana at that point, and it was very polluted.
And now when you drive through Gary, Indiana, it doesn't smell like pollution anymore and the air much better. So, you know, that's from personal experience. Seeing that change dramatically over the, over my lifetime is pretty amazing.
Gail Good: [
00:03:41] Yeah, when the act was first put in place in the seventies it really gave us the ability to begin to study air pollution and its effects and how much it was kind of impacting people and of the world around them.
And then over time, it's given us the ability to, you know, write permits for sources and just understand air quality issues in even more detail.
Katie Grant: [
00:04:03] What does it mean for us today? Because it's still in place now. Yes. So what, what does it mean for us today? What, what, might we see that we wouldn't see if we didn't have the Clean Air Act today.
Gail Good: [
00:04:15] So we're we implement the federal Clean Air Act here, um, in the air program at DNR. Um, we basically, what happens is through that act, EPA sets requirements and boundaries and things that we can do and implement here. So we're doing that here in the program. And then, um, we work within those boundaries to implement the act still today.
So it's very much a part of what we're doing now in the air program.
Katie Grant: [
00:04:41] And you had mentioned seeing the change in Indiana, but what has changed about Wisconsin's air quality in the last 50 years, and how might people who aren't scientists notice a difference here in our state?
Brad Pierce: [
00:04:55] So I think it's a little. I do kind of global air quality. So for me it's a little easier to talk about it on maybe, for the United States as a whole. And if I look back on, uh, when I used to work at NASA, we were doing work with satellite data that was measuring the amount of aerosols in the atmosphere. So the particulates. And that's very relevant for the Clean Air Act because one of the, one of the, uh, pollutants that's, that is regulated as PM 2.5 which are small particulates.
And as recently as 2000, 2003 when we looked at aerosols over the entire United States, we saw all sorts of heavy aerosol loading in the Ohio river Valley in the Southeastern US, and that would often get transported up into the, into Wisconsin. We don't see that anymore. So much of that aerosol loading, uh, that was in the atmosphere frequently is pretty much gone now.
And that is from the Clean Air Act and the, the, uh, reductions in the, uh, the sulfur dioxide emissions coming out of power plants.
Katie Grant: [
00:06:11] Okay. And you had mentioned PM 2.5 what is that?
Brad Pierce: [
00:06:15] So PM 2.5 stands for particulate matter, which is small particles like dust that you can see, uh, blowing through the air, but smaller than 2.5 microns.
So those are very small. Those are smaller than the dust particles that you can see in the sunlight when you see dust floating in the air. And those are particularly relevant because they can, when you inhale, those, those can get deep inside your lungs and then have adverse health impacts.
Gail Good: [
00:06:47] Sometimes we call PM two-five "fine particles", so you may have heard that term before too.
And um, that's, fine particles, that's really a success story here in Wisconsin. We did used to have areas of the state, um, in the Southeast part of the state that we called "non-attainment" for PM 2.5 or fine particles. And what that means is that they aren't meeting the federal PM 2.5 standards. We don't have PM two-five non-attainment areas in the state anymore.
Um, through successful regulation, through cutting emissions, um, we've been able to see those areas that were previously not meeting the standard, now meeting the standards. So that's good news and you know, part of the success of how the act works is it really allows you to regulate, set those boundaries, set those requirements, and see real reductions in emissions that lead to reductions and measured concentrations of these pollutants.
Katie Grant: [
00:07:37] Yeah. Are there, you mentioned that it was. Fine particles, correct. Is, is there any other kinder is, is PM 2.5 really what the only thing that we're watching for?
Gail Good: [
00:07:48] No, we also measure PM 10 in the state, so that would be particulate matter with a diameter of 10 microns or less. Um, we also have at times measured what's called total suspended particulate, um, or particles that are even larger in size. We're primarily primarily now focused on, um, PM 2.5 because of the health impacts that it can have.
Brad Pierce: [
00:08:10] And then there's also some of the other pollutants that are regulated are ozone. So that's the other side of the coin, that the Clean Air Act controls ozone abundances as well through controlling different emissions.
Katie Grant: [
00:08:23] Does all of Wisconsin meet those federal standards today? And if not, what is the DNR doing to change that?
Gail Good: [
00:08:30] That's a good question. So 94% of the population of our state lives in an area that's meeting all federal standards. But we do have some areas of the state that we do consider non-attainment that aren't meeting all of the federal standards.
Um, Brad actually just referenced, um, the pollutant that has been a persistent concern for us in Wisconsin. That's ozone. We do have some ozone non-attainment areas along our lakeshore, which is where we have historically seen these ozone non-attainment areas. That's really due to, um, the unique kind of meteorology, um, that can occur in that area.
And then the geography along the lakeshore as well. So, um, and also, um, besides the meteorology and geography, we're really subject to a lot of transported pollution from areas out of state. So, um, if you can imagine a nice summer day where you have southerly winds. So winds coming up from the South pulling some of the pollution that may be formed, another, or being admitted in other areas, um, up over our lakeshore.
During the day on a nice hot, sunny day, you take these... ozone is not directly emitted to, we should say, it's actually formed from a reaction between nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds. Um, a nice sunny day, those kind of cook in the sunlight out over the lake. And then, um, if you've ever been, um, kind of visiting the lakeshore on one of those summer days, you might've noticed that the breeze picks up later in the afternoon often.
So that ozone that's formed out over the lake then gets carried onto the lakeshore, um, with that lake breeze. That's why we tend to see some higher concentrations of ozone along our lakeshore and have historically had a persistent non-attainment issue there.
Katie Grant: [
00:10:19] How does Wisconsin compare to other States in implementing the Clean Air Act? Are we, we're, we're doing the best, right? We're, we're awesome.
Gail Good: [
00:10:29] Of course, we are! Different States implement the act in different ways. Um, some states, um, are, um, implementing it, very implementing the act very directly. We're what's called a "state implementation plan" state. We are able to work within the boundaries of the Clean Air Act and the requirements that EPA has, um, to, to write our own rules so that we're able to implement them in the ways that we need to, to, to meet the requirements of the act. So little bit of a difference. Um, but everybody is really implementing, um, the Clean Air Act in the way that EPA requires them to.
Brad Pierce: [
00:11:06] I can chime in on that too. I've, I've worked with, uh, regulatory agencies in California. Uh, I've worked with them in Texas. I've worked with them in the mid-Atlantic states and in Long Island and New York state, and I've worked with Wisconsin. And so, uh, Wisconsin is the only place where I've been able to actually participate in a field campaign to try and understand exactly that ozone problem that we have along the western shore of Lake Michigan.
So I'd say Wisconsin is, is one of those, uh, areas that is really going out of its way to try and address the, uh, the exceedances that it has and understand them better.
Katie Grant: [
00:11:46] That's what we like to hear. Wisconsin is always the best.
Gail Good: [
00:11:49] Right? And you did ask what we're doing, um, to, to try and address some of our issues. So maybe we can spend a few minutes talking about that because there are a lot of things that we do to try to address our ozone issues. Brad mentioned one, um, we have done and, and actively participated in it and engaged with a lot of our partners like Brad at the UW, um, to try and understand the issue.
Um, you can't, uh, solve an issue until you can kind of measure it and, and then, um, and understand it. And so we've spent a lot of time, um, doing just that. We also, um, we work with an organization called LADCO or Lake Michigan Air Directors Consortium. They're a really important partner for us in working through some of the technical details that help us understand and define our ozone problem, um, so that we can work toward resolution.
It also gives us a forum to engage with other states. Um, so I did mention that, you know, we are responsible for some of our air pollution, but there's a portion of it that, um, really is being transported to us from out of state. So working through LADCO gives us a forum to work with those other states to address some of those issues. That's just a few of the things that we're doing. And Brad, maybe you want to expand a little bit on some of the more specifics of some of the study that we've done.
Brad Pierce: [
00:13:07] So, yeah, we conducted, uh, the Lake Michigan ozone study, uh, in 2017. There actually was an earlier Lake Michigan ozone study that was mostly coordinated by the Wisconsin DNR. And, uh, as, as Gail mentioned, what's happening in terms of the ozone chemistry is happening out over the lake, so we don't have monitors, so that we can measure what's happening. So you need some unique ways to look at what's going on over the lake. The first Lake Michigan ozone study had aircraft that did profiles out over the lake and over land to try and get some idea uh, of, of what was going on, so we actually have, uh, measurement of the concentration of aerosols and ozone and its precursors, uh, right over the lake. We sort of took that and, and broadened the scope of the measurement. So we not only had aircraft that were doing profiles, so we know what the vertical distribution of ozone and other pollutants are, but also doing mapping, uh, so that we can actually see maps of that, uh, ozone precursor concentrations out over the lake, on land, and relate that to the, to the unique transport that's going on in in the area the unique meteorology.
We also had a number of different ground-based measurements that were all along the shore, beginning in Schiller park, uh, in Chicago, right outside of Chicago O'hare, and moving all the way along up the western shore up to Sheboygan, Wisconsin, and made those measurements continuously during May and June of 2017. Um, and also had some additional enhanced measurements at one site in Illinois. So again, in partnership with LADCO and the, the Illinois Department of Environmental Quality, uh, we had a site there, uh, and we had a site up in Sheboygan where we were able to look at very detailed chemistry and meteorology in those regions.
So we're, we're in the process of, of analyzing that data now beginning to publish, uh, results of that. Uh, we're at Wisconsin at Madison. We're taking that a step further right now and trying to use those measurements to help improve our ability to model, to forecast the meteorology that's associated with these ozone enhancement events.
And we're working with the Wisconsin DNR and the Lake Michigan Air Directors Consortium, uh, in a project funded by NASA to try and build the best modeling platform so that we can capture that unique meteorology and then use that to better understand how to control emissions to reduce those sort of, in the future.
Katie Grant: [
00:16:02] Yeah. It sounds like we know a lot, but there's still a lot for us to learn.
Gail Good: [
00:16:09] Yeah. We're, I think we have a relatively unique situation here. Um, there are other shoreline areas that experienced something similar, um, like we do where we're seeing elevated concentrations of ozone along the shoreline.
But I think there are some uniquenesses to Wisconsin and in particular, this side of Lake Michigan that we're still working to understand. And then Brad talked a little bit about, you know, how to determine what's happening over water. And I think that's an area that we're still really trying to understand a little better. Um, you know, what really goes on to with those pollutants as they're over water.
Katie Grant: [
00:16:49] Yeah. So we opened up on Instagram and let everyone know that we were going to be doing this episode and asked what sort of questions do our followers have about air quality and just the air in general in Wisconsin. So here's a couple of those questions:
Does Wisconsin require vehicle emission testing? Why or why not?
Gail Good: [
00:17:11] Yes. There are some parts of our state that do require vehicle emission testing. Um, those areas are, um, in Kenosha County, Milwaukee County, Ozaukee. We're seeing Sheboygan, Washington, and Waukesha counties. Um, the reason that we do that, um, is that these are areas that have historically, uh, violated the ozone standard.
They were historically non-attainment areas. Um, some of them still are, um, and some of them aren't. But when an area is not attaining a standard for some time, when it does eventually attain a standard and we're able to re-designate that area, we want to be able to maintain that good air quality in that area.
So, um, even some of those counties that are not at this point, um, non-attainment, those requirements are in place to make sure that that area can maintain that good air quality and not be in a situation where they're violating a standard again.
Brad Pierce: [
00:18:07] Yeah, and I think simply put, part of the reason we've seen such reductions in emissions over the last 50 years is, is kind of twofold. One, we put scrubbers on power plants and that reduced both, uh, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide emissions, and we put catalytic converters in cars, and if those catalytic converters aren't functioning properly, then we're back where we were in 1970. So those, uh, the, the emissions testing is to make sure that the technology that's been developed and put in place to reduce emissions is still functioning right.
Katie Grant: [
00:18:46] Yeah. Makes sense. You've kind of alluded to this already, but why does Door County have some of the worst air quality in Wisconsin at times?
Gail Good: [
00:18:54] Yeah, that's a really good and interesting question. Um, so I mentioned that the lakeshore areas are where we tend to see our higher concentrations of ozone. Door County, right, is, um, up at the you know, tip of that Door peninsula and, um, there aren't a lot of sources of air pollution there, so you might not expect to see high concentrations of ozone there. Um, like you might expect to see in some other parts of the state that do have some more of those, um, typical kind of emissions sources.
Door County is interesting though. I mentioned, um, earlier that, um, some of the ozone issue, um, is, is really caused by transported pollution from, from out of our state. And also, um, on those nice summer days where you have that southerly wind. So sometimes if you were able, we, we do actually provide air quality information to the public.
So you can kind of see how the monitors that we have along the lakeshore that are measuring air quality, you can see how they change over the course of a day. And so sometimes what you see, if you can kind of imagine that southerly wind coming up along lakeshore, transporting that pollution, cooking over the lake and kind of working its way up the lakeshore, what we'll see is, um kind of the, the, you'll see the concentrations increase over the day from South to North, and so then eventually towards the end of the day as that southerly wind has kind of helped push that pollution up along the lakeshore, you'll see Door County and the monitor that's there at Newport State Park, you'll see that monitor show an elevated concentration of ozone, often towards the end of the day. That southerly wind has just worked, has helped push the pollution up to that point.
Katie Grant: [
00:20:32] How big of a difference is there in air quality between the Northern part of the state and the Southern part of the state?
Gail Good: [
00:20:39] Um, well, that depends on what type of pollution you're talking about. Um, there is a difference. We talked about PM to five a little bit earlier and what that is, we do see differences in PM 2.5 concentrations. As you look from North to South, um, the Southern part of this. State, and especially the Southeast part of the state tends to be more heavily populated, so you have more vehicles.
Um, and you also have more industry relatively, you know, relative to the Northern part of the state, um, down South. So we do tend to see higher concentrations of fine particles in the Southern part of the state compared to the Northern part of the state.
Katie Grant: [
00:21:16] What types of jobs are available with the DNR involving air quality?
Gail Good: [
00:21:20] We have lots of jobs. We, um, actually we, um, have about at any given time, between 110 and about 120 people working in the air program, so working on air quality issues.
Katie Grant: [
00:21:32] Throughout the state or just here in Madison?
Gail Good: [
00:21:34] Throughout the state. Um, we've got probably about 40% of the program working here in Madison and about 60% of the state, um, working around the state.
Um, we have people here that are, um, obviously monitoring the air quality. We've talked about that a lot here. Um, so we. We do have a fair number of people who work around the state to make sure that those monitors are operating correctly and that they're doing what they need to do, um, to record concentrations so the public can understand what's going on with their air quality any given day, 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Um, we also have people here who do a lot of policy work. I mentioned that, that the act, you know, we're, we're really implementing federal requirements here. So we have a lot of policy folks who look at what those federal requirements are, keep track of changes that are being made at the federal level and work on how we're going to implement those throughout the state.
We do write permits for our sources around the state as well. So we have, um, a lot of engineers working in the program who, um, write permits to make sure that people understand, um, what they have, what they need to do to be able to comply with different standards. Um, we have compliance inspectors who go out and work with the sources to make sure they understand the requirements of their permit and to make sure that they understand how to operate their equipment, um, and, and how to remain in compliance with the standards and with their permit. And then, you know, finally, we've got to make sure that we have people who can, um, we've got to have funds basically to do our work.
So we, we rely heavily on, um revenue, kind of that we're bringing in from the sources. Um, and then also we rely on federal grants, um, to do our work as well. So we need people to help us do that, um, also in the program. So really a range of jobs.
Brad Pierce: [
00:23:25] And meteorologists to help forecast our quality.
Gail Good: [
00:23:28] We do have a meteorologist on staff. Thanks Brad.
Katie Grant: [
00:23:33] I always get emails from him at, as soon as I leave the office, I get the email, Hey, we're going to have to issue an alert tonight. And I'm like, I just got home. Well, just got home.
Gail Good: [
00:23:45] We're always out there and making sure that air quality is good for people. We want people to know what's going on with their air quality. And our meteorologist is a critical part of that. Um, and the work that we do to make sure the public's informed about what's going on with their air.
Brad Pierce: [
00:24:00] That's another good example of how Wisconsin collaborates with all the states within the great lakes area, because those meteorologists get together Monday, Wednesday, Friday during the, uh, the ozone season in particular to say, what's the outlook here?
And they're working together, uh, across, you know, from various different states to get the best idea of what's happening.
Katie Grant: [
00:24:24] Yeah. So. What is the protocol here in Wisconsin, uh, for responding to air quality events like the Northern Metals fire in Minnesota?
Gail Good: [
00:24:36] I'm really glad you're asking that because that's actually a place where our meteorologist is, is really critical as well.
Um, our, our, um, staff meteorologist is constantly, um, watching what's going on, um, and looking for situations like fires that may become impactful to our state. So our meteorologist is looking at maps, collaborating with other forecasters across the state to understand what's going on, whether it be something that's happening in Canada or Minnesota, as you mentioned.
Um, and, in looking at satellite imagery and lots of other different tools to understand if we might be impacted by wildfire smoke here in Wisconsin. Another important tool that we have to identify, um, smoke events or wildfire events is our monitoring network. Uh, we talked about PM 2.5 and when we do see wildfires that are impacting our state, um, if that, if that wildfire smoke is making it down towards the ground level we will see that in our monitors and we will record higher concentrations of PM two-five. So the meteorologists and the monitoring folks are working together to keep an eye on situations like that. And then we do try to use a variety of means to get information out to the public.
Our air quality mapping is available any time. Um, uh, you can go and take a look at your air quality, um, through the web at any time. We do also try to utilize social media, um, when we're seeing events to really spread the word that, Hey, if you're seeing kind of hazy air today, um, we are being impacted by smoke and we're seeing that on our monitors.
And you know, a person may want to keep track of, of that, um, to make sure that, you know, if the levels of smoke are getting kind of elevated and we're recording higher concentrations, um, certain individuals may just want to be aware of that to be careful about being outdoors at that time.
Katie Grant: [
00:26:28] Yeah. From your research perspective. Um, do events like that mean anything for you? Is it, uh, an opportunity to explore this more?
Brad Pierce: [
00:26:37] So the event you were first referring to is a factory fire.
Brad Pierce: [
00:26:42] And I guess the other part of that is the, the local air quality management works with the EPA to make sure there, if there is any toxic pollutants.
So not just the, not just the ozone and the PM 2.5 but, but toxics that monitors are deployed in the vicinity of, of that incident so that the public is. So that that ambient air is monitored and looking for any toxic release. So I think that was a big part of that deployment. The fires, the wildfires in general are something that that, as a researcher, I'm very interested in. And it's really, as I said earlier, we used to be concerned about regional haze events because of sulfate aerosols. And those are largely, those don't happen as much now, but as you know, fires in the Western US and often in the Southeastern US are now quite prevalent. And so we do look at those very carefully. And again, we use satellite measurements. Cause in some cases these are large enough plumes that you can track them across the country and out over the Atlantic ocean. So that's an area that we're researching quite a bit right now.
Gail Good: [
00:27:56] Yeah. So really it does really depend on the type of fire that we're looking at in terms of the response that we might have and how much the program might get involved in it looking at that. There's certainly been other types of, um, fires at, you know, at sources where we've been concerned about, um, one pollutant or, or another. Um, and, and we would get involved in that in a variety of ways. It's usually in providing some technical assistance to folks like EPA who, um, do more response monitoring, um, for different toxics and helping kind of analyze the data and, um, just informing the public where we need to.
Katie Grant: [
00:28:29] Does pollution here ever get trapped close to the ground? Like it does in Salt Lake City? Why or why not?
Gail Good: [
00:28:35] It does. Um, that typically happens in something called a Temperature Inversion. So that's normally, um, if you could kind of imagine yourself at ground level and then kind of traveling up through the atmosphere, you would expect the temperature to get colder as you moved from the ground up.
Sometimes though, um in a temperature inversion the temperature actually might, um, actually rise as you go up. And so, um, oftentimes we'll see these in the winter where you have, um, from the ground to a certain level, the temperature is going down, but then there's a spot where the temperature starts to go back up.
And that's called a Temperature Inversion. It kind of acts as like a lid, if you will. Um, and can trap pollutants. That is what you're referring to in Salt Lake City. That does happen, and it can happen here as well.
Brad Pierce: [
00:29:22] It's that temperature inversion out over Lake Michigan that leads to the trapping of those pollutants and some of the ozone enhancements along the shore, and that's something that happens in the springtime when the water's cold and you get this a colder Marine boundary layer.
Katie Grant: [
00:29:40] Okay. What can residents do to help further improve the air quality here in Wisconsin?
Gail Good: [
00:29:47] Thanks for asking. There's a lot that people can do to learn about their air quality and take action. Um, I mentioned earlier that we offer, um, access to our monitor data all the time through our website. That's a really great place to kind of learn about air quality, learn what's going on with your air that day and stay informed.
Um, we also do offer some mobile applications for that too, so you can go, whether you're Google or, um or Apple, you can go to wherever you go to get your apps and look for Wisconsin AQM and, um, download an application that can help you really stay informed about what's going on with your air quality throughout the day.
There's also actions that anyone can take. Um, we do have a page on our website called, um, "Do a little, Save a lot" and it really helps people understand that they can do small things that can be very impactful to their air quality. So it might be things like considering a different type of lawnmower or, um, really working to make sure that you're using your vehicle most efficiently.
Your, Brad mentioned catalytic converters, and you know, getting your car checked out and making sure that it's working to its optimal function. There are lots of different things that people can do to, to really make a big impact on their air quality.
Brad Pierce: [
00:31:03] Ride your bike. Take a walk, instead of driving in the car.
Katie Grant: [
00:31:09] So those little things really do make that big of a difference.
Gail Good: [
00:31:12] They can, especially when we're talking about things like mobile sources or vehicles, those are really impactful. So riding your bike is a great way to get exercise and to really reduce emissions from, from your vehicle. You have zero emissions if you're riding your bike.
So let's, yeah, absolutely. Those things add up.
Katie Grant: [
00:31:29] You've been listening to Wild Wisconsin, a podcast brought to you by the Wisconsin DNR. Still have questions about air quality in our state. Send those questions to DNR podcast@wisconsin.gov and we'll work with Gail, Brad, and the rest of the air team here at the DNR to get you answers.
For more great content, be sure to subscribe to Wild Wisconsin wherever you get your podcasts. Leave us a review or tell us how you'd like to hear from on a future episode. Thanks for listening.