While the opening of the first of Intel’s computer chip plants is delayed until at least 2030, Licking County residents are moving forward with a citizen-led effort to monitor air quality around the would-be plants.
Ken Apacki, of Granville, ordered 24 air monitors – six for volunteers, and 18 for schools, fire stations and nursing homes in Licking County. They look like small, dark bricks that attach to the outside of buildings.
“And what we're gonna be targeting is monitoring particulate VOCs, volatile organic compounds,” Apacki said.
Apacki is leading an effort to establish a baseline by recording the area’s current air quality as it is today. He and others are mainly worried about possible air pollution from tech-giant Intel’s two semiconductor fabrication plants that are under construction in nearby New Albany. With other developments slated for the aera, Apacki said Intel isn’t the only concern.
“What we want to be doing is challenging industry, not just Intel, but all these data centers,” Apacki said, raising the concern that some may use gas generators to create extra power.
Microsoft recently pulled back on developing three large data centers in Licking County, but central Ohio is already home to more than 100 data centers, including ones for Google, Meta and Amazon. Meanwhile, Licking County has seen or expects other developments like asphalt plants, plastic recyclers and wastewater treatment facilities.
“Now, our concerns are even heightened, because of the dismantling of the EPA both on the state and national level,” added Ken Apacki’s wife, Carol Apacki.
The Apackis have had a different air monitor on their house for a while, and Carol Apacki said that they can see changes in pollution from hour to hour.
“We noticed our monitor went up when we were having fireworks by the 4th of July,” Carol Apacki said. “We've noticed that five o'clock, our air monitor with the particulate goes up when traffic increases on 161.”
The new monitors will track volatile organic compounds, which can affect human health, as well as sulfur oxides and weather data. Other sensors can be added for chemicals like hydrogen fluoride, hydrochloric acid or ammonia, Ken Apacki said.
Open source air monitoring
The monitors come from SimpleAQ, an open source project started by Ben Li-Sauerwine of Grandview Heights. Li-Sauerwine said he started the project after noticing poor air quality in his neighborhood.
Li-Sauerwine was hanging Christmas lights on Thanksgiving evening in 2021 when he smelled fuel outside. The smell gave him a headache. Li-Sauerwine thought, “If whatever's in the air gives me a headache after three minutes, what's it doing to my young kids? What's it do to my neighbors?”
Li-Sauerwine first went to the Ohio EPA.
“They felt that it was explained by the bituminous coal mine,” Li-Sauerwine said. “And the trouble is that an explanation doesn't do anything for me. If something is giving me a headache, if something's making me unwell, I don't care what's causing it as much as I care about stopping that thing.”
Li-Sauerwine teamed up with a former colleague to produce air monitors and make them available at-cost to anyone who wanted one. He said SimpleAQ users own their data – unlike some commercial air monitors – and have the option to share the data publicly.
“We knew when we started, air monitoring was not going to be one size fits all,” Li-Sauerwine said.
Li-Sauerwine understands the Apackis’ concerns with Intel. Referencing an EPA permit for the site that Apacki sent him, Li-Sauerwine noted that some listed pollutants are very specific, like nitrous oxide and carbon monoxide.
“Volatile organic compounds and particulate matter is the question mark because it matters what that particulate is,” Li-Sauerwine said. “If that particulate were pollen, for example, it wouldn't be a big problem. And if that particulate were lead, that's a massive problem.”
“It does not give us a full picture. And we as community members don't really fully understand what we are breathing,” said Madhumita Dutta, an associate professor in Ohio State University’s department of geography, also referencing the EPA permit for the Intel site.
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Creating an emergency response system
Dutta got involved with Licking County’s Clean Air and Water citizen group and then put Apacki in touch with an OSU GIS coordinator, who helped map where to put his air monitors. Dutta said the mapping helps visualize the locations of schools, nursing homes and fire departments, as well as the wind direction.
"The idea is to create a robust emergency response system so that all these different agencies can work together and respond if there are these kind of emissions,” Dutta explained.
Dutta is originally from India. She called attention to the 1984 chemical disaster that happened in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, India. An American-run pesticide plant leaked somewhere between 25 and 45 tons of toxic gas, immediately killing several thousand people and causing sickness and premature death for thousands more.
“It was held from them what toxic stuff was coming out from that plant. There was no emergency response because people did not know,” Dutta said.
Now, she worries about something similar happening in central Ohio. She wants to make sure the public is aware of leaks and that companies – and regulators, like the Ohio EPA – are held accountable.
Dutta said people in Licking County are paying attention to the environmental impacts of development. She thinks people in Columbus should, too.
"It's a fundamental right to breathe clean air,” Dutta said.
