Community-based Air Quality Monitoring
We are committed to community participatory research in pollution-burdened communities, like West Ventura and Oxnard, to galvanize communities to push collectively for local pollution reduction solutions.
Interested in getting involved? Fill out this interest form!
Better understanding our local air quality is the first step to addressing health and climate-harming pollution. Since 2019, we have been engaged in community air monitoring in communities disproportionately impacted by fossil fuel pollution in Ventura County.
Through strong partnerships with the Ventura County Air Pollution Control District, California State University Channel Islands, Clinicas del Camino Real, Patagonia, Blue Tomorrow, and the Port of Hueneme, CFROG is monitoring the following harmful pollutants: ozone, particulate matter, nitrogen oxides, volatile organic compounds, and black carbon across Ventura County.
We are gathering air quality data that is not currently available through government agencies’ monitoring programs, providing a greater level of air quality data that may inform health impacts and pollution burdens in vulnerable neighborhoods in Ventura County. By supplementing the limited regulatory monitoring network with lower-cost sensors, CFROG is working to fill an important data gap with community-driven research.
Collecting this granular, community-specific data is essential to enhancing public and policymaker awareness of pollution impacts unique to specific census tracts, and acts as a catalyst for community members to make informed decisions about their health and potential air quality-associated risks.
This data will soon be available in real-time on external websites; be sure to sign up for CFROG’s mailing list and be the first to know when our data goes live!
For Community & By Community
CFROG takes a participatory and community forward approach to air quality monitoring, convening Community Advisory Committees (CACs) made up of local impacted residents, community leaders, representatives from local public health and environmental organizations, and government officials who guide monitor placement, outreach, and communications to ensure our efforts are not only for the community but by the community.
Currently, CFROG facilitates CACs in West Ventura and Oxnard, where members are equipped with the necessary knowledge, tools, and training to feel comfortable and confident in participating in discussions, making project decisions, and encouraging action and decision-making informed by our data. CAC members collaboratively develop community engagement tools, educational and informational materials developed from monitor data, strategy charts, advocacy plans, policy recommendations, and proposals that are culturally relevant and comprehensible.
Learn more about the pollutants we are monitoring, where they come from, and what they mean for your health:
Monitoring air at homes and schools across Ventura County and California
In 2020, CFROG helped distribute low-cost PurpleAir sensors to monitor P.M 2.5 at schools and homes across Ventura County. Additionally, the California Air Resources Board offers a similar tool with data from other community-based monitoring projects. Use the following resources to find even more hyper-local, real-time, air quality data.
My People, My Air (Mi Gente, Mi Aire) is supported by the “California Climate Investments” (CCI) program, a statewide initiative that puts billions of Cap-and-Invest, formerly known as Cap-and-Trade, dollars to work reducing greenhouse gas emissions, strengthening the economy, and improving public health and the environment—particularly in disadvantaged communities.
CFROG is not an air quality regulatory agency. The data presented on any of our air quality website, as well as any data generated by CFROG’s air quality monitors, is not intended to be used for or construed as regulatory data. The information provided here and any data gathered by CFROG’s air quality monitoring equipment is purely informational.