Madison climate leaders seek local funding to track air quality

The city’s Sustainable Madison Committee is slated to meet Monday evening, and city climate officials plan to present information about local air quality, how they’ve been tracking it over the past year and what residents should know. As the United States reaches a new national wildfire record, federal funding for an air quality monitoring project in Madison is set to expire next year, prompting city leaders to seek local funding for its next phase. 

A few years ago, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency under President Joe Biden’s administration awarded Madison a $430,000 three-year grant to implement an ambient air quality monitoring system. That funding will run out next year, and city sustainability leaders say it’s not likely the agency will provide additional funding for the project to continue moving forward, despite the growing concern over local air quality due to wildfires. 

The National Interagency Fire Center recorded more than 44,000 wildfires across the country this year — the most wildfires logged by the agency since 2015, when 41,000 wildfires scorched a record 7.3 million acres across America. 

In Madison this summer, traveling smoke from Canadian wildfires has also repeatedly worsened air quality.

When wildfires burn, the soot and ash pollute the air, making it hazardous to live and breathe. When there’s a certain level of pollutants — or microscopic particulate matter like mold, pollen, dust, smog or smoke floating in the air — environmental regulators alert the public that the air is unhealthy. Air pollution can even be seen and monitored from space.

Especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic, poor air quality has increasingly impacted people who are vulnerable to respiratory and heart challenges, such as children, older adults or people with chronic health conditions like asthma. Environmental researchers are also finding that people of color breathe more polluted air across income levels and regions of the United States. Some of the factors that influence air quality inequities include redlining, proximity to railroads and highways, or oil and gas operations that produce pollution.

Air quality a priority for city climate leaders

Local climate experts with the city want to continue tracking air pollution despite the end of federal financial support, mostly to determine if there are any concerning trends in Madison’s air quality.

Madison’s Sustainability and Resilience Program is housed under Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway’s office, similar to the structure of the county’s climate counterpart. The city’s program aims to reduce climate pollution, prepare for and mitigate the impacts of climate change, enhance the quality of the environment, and ensure the well-being of all residents, according to city documents.

City sustainability officials, including Jessica Price, manager of the city’s climate program, want to cut pollution from greenhouse gases, increase access to low-carbon transportation and ensure people know how to navigate poor air quality. Those efforts include the rollout of a user-friendly, digital network of air quality monitoring systems for Madison residents to engage with.

Last September, the sustainability program installed 65 air monitors citywide to collect data on air quality across different environments with the federal grant. Climate staff are still several months out from gathering a full set of data because the solar-powered batteries died in the winter, disrupting the process. 

The monitors are installed on city-owned light poles based on different priorities residents expressed with staff, like testing air quality near schools, and what would maximize the geographical reach for data collection. Some are installed downtown near City Hall, by golf courses, at intersections near community centers, by schools and roads, and in residential areas.

The city jointly operates two monitors with the state Department of Natural Resources, one near East High School and the other downtown on University Avenue. The state uses regulatory air quality monitors that check for six types of air pollutants: ozone, particulate matter, carbon monoxide, lead, sulfur dioxide and nitrogen dioxide.

State regulators update their data a few times a week throughout the year, including forecast maps showing air quality where their monitors are. Most of the three dozen monitors are scattered across the lower part of the state, closer to the southeast. 

In that region, environmental advocates have increasingly been calling on state sustainability officials to address air quality near Beloit given concern about pollution from a proposed natural gas plant. An engineering firm’s analysis of current pollution levels and the projected carbon emissions from the proposed Alliant Energy facility expansion found that particulate matter levels would likely exceed national standards in Rock County and near northern Illinois, according to Midwest Environmental Advocates.

Locally, when city staff began the project, Price said they weren’t sure whether the air monitors would detect hyperlocal sources of pollution across Madison, but the goal was to understand the geographic distribution of particulate matter. It’s a bit too early to tell what that looks like, but researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Nelson Institute for Environmental Studies are digging into the available data in the meantime, Price said.

“We’re not seeing what you might call ‘hot spots’ of poor air quality that’ll be like particular sides of town or areas that always have poor air quality relative to others, or something like that,” Price said. “But so far, just kind of taking a look at it big picture, we’re not seeing anything that’s really standing out, which I think by and large is very good news for us.”

Information about daily air quality is available online alongside most weather tracking systems, although specifics about individual communities, at least in Wisconsin, often vary due to funding and equipment availability.

Regional air quality monitoring varies

Next year, the city’s sustainability program is requesting a full-time coordinator position and funding to pay for the software that operates the air quality monitors and publishes the data. The cost to continue the sustainability program next year is estimated at around $212,000, according to city budget documents. That cost includes the subscription cost to upload the live data to a user-friendly platform.

Other air quality monitors not run by the city also upload data within the Madison area, but sustainability officials are hoping to upload their data with the Love My Air platform, which nearby municipalities like Milwaukee County use. 

Milwaukee County also received federal funding to track air quality using platforms, including Love My Air, but it uses a variety of different monitors than the city of Madison. The Milwaukee County project is more geared toward health education and working with teachers and students, looking at spatial reach, whereas Madison’s project is more focused on ambient monitoring of air quality, Price said.

Seeing spikes or major differences in air quality data from monitors is to be expected in some areas closer to more traffic with carbon emissions, or across Madison following wildfires, as examples.

Pointing to the increasing wildfires raging across the United States and Canada, climate change scientists estimate there were more unhealthy air quality alerts this summer than previously. National and local climate experts, including the director of Dane County’s climate office, Kathy Kuntz, suspect conditions are likely to worsen before they improve. 

“We’re seeing more fires than we’ve seen in the past, so we don’t know exactly when the air will clear. … It makes it tricky for people to predict,” Kuntz said. 

Kuntz is the director of the county’s Office of Energy and Climate Change, leading the six-person group of specialists in reducing emissions and working to ensure a more sustainable community. That includes partnering with schools, businesses and local governments — like the city of Madison — to educate about climate change and air quality.

The city has also been partnering with groups like the Foundation for Black Women’s Wellness, Latino Health Council of Dane County, The Hmong Institute, environmental researchers at UW-Madison, and Public Health Madison & Dane County to educate and learn about residents’ air quality and climate needs. 

When air pollution is high, Price recommends avoiding the inhalation of particulate matter by reducing time outside, wearing tight-fitting N95 or KN95 masks, running air conditioners and purifiers, and circulating air as much as possible, while monitoring breathing and other health conditions. 

Armstead Feland contributed to this report. Feland is a student journalist who helped to produce this article as part of the 2025 Youth Press Corps summer journalism camp, a partnership between the Cap Times and the University of Wisconsin-Madison’s Greater Madison Writing Project.