The findings of a yearly air quality report card aren’t good for Reno.
According to a report by the American Lung Association one of the major causes is the city’s increased development.
But Melissa Ramos, senior manager with the American Lung Association, said the pollutants are coming from several sources. “It could be coming from dust, in construction, diesel exhaust from, diesel buses and heavy duty trucks. And then we also, of course, see it more commonly from wildfire smoke. And that's very common in Reno,” Ramos said.
One local agency is helping get the word out about poor air quality. Northern Nevada Public Health, not only monitors air quality, it also issues advisories.
The advisories are something they recently started doing, said Ben McMullen, air quality specialist with Northern Nevada Public Health He said these help inform people when air quality is less than ideal.
“There are multiple stages of emergency episodes based on pollution levels usually issued due to PM 2.5, which is the primary component in wildfire smoke. Stage one being the lowest emergency episodes, stage four being the highest,” McMullen said.
The agency even offers advisories and information in Spanish. Yeraldin Deavila, a communication specialist with the agency, said that while there is no dedicated translation team, they have staff members who are bilingual who help.
“We try to provide information in Spanish on our majority of topics. The majority of our information is translated and sent to a list of Spanish-speaking media. We also publish it on our website. And in addition to that, we also posted on our dedicated Facebook page that's in Spanish called NNPH En Espanol. We feel it's important for the community to obtain this information regardless of their language so that they can make educated decisions about their health,” Deavilla said.
Deavila said they translate the information out of responsibility and commitment to the Spanish speaking community. They want to make sure that their information is accessible to as many people as possible.
“We want to make sure that we don't just translate information. We want to make sure that it is culturally relevant and clear so that our community can clearly understand it. Sometimes there's technical terms or scientific terms that don't translate well across all of our Spanish speaking countries. So it's important for us to work carefully in making sure that we don't change the meaning of our messaging,” she said.
Ramos said that because one of the primary sources of pollutants in the air comes from diesel emissions it’s important to focus on having cleaner alternatives. The nonprofit Nevada Clean Energy Fund provides access to clean energy. It does it by providing both technical and financial resources.
“So the Nevada Clean Energy Fund houses several clean energy projects and incentives, as well as assistance to homeowners, businesses,” she said
Earlier this year, Nevada passed two bills that expanded access to solar energy. One allowed for the Nevada Clean Energy Fund to continue funding programs like cleaning up school buses. The other expanded access to solar panels on affordable housing.
“So this is especially important because we know that low income neighborhoods are disproportionately impacted by air pollution. And so knowing that this bill is going to provide solar access to these communities is going to be a huge win, not only for those families, but also just air quality across the state,” Ramos said.
Because many of these families wouldn’t have access to these solar panels on their own, the bill provides an incentive to landlords to install panels. Ramos said taking advantage of cleaner energy helps contribute to better air quality.
