U.S. air quality monitors have a terrible record of detecting even the most obvious pollution

A gas flare from the Shell Chemical LP petroleum refinery illuminates the sky on August 21, 2019 in Norco, Louisiana
(Image credit: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)

The United States' network of 3,900 air monitoring devices across the country routinely miss "major toxic releases and day-to-day pollution dangers," Reuters reports after examining data from the Environmental Protection Agency.

The air monitoring system failed to detect any risk from 10 of the biggest oil refinery explosions from the past decade, despite thousands of people requiring hospitalization and the refineries themselves reporting toxic emissions to regulators, Reuters notes.

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In some cases, dangerous air quality levels are missed because there are no monitors for small particle pollution present in the first place, Reuters reports. An oil refinery in Superior, Wisconsin, experienced a leak of 17,000 barrels of asphalt in 2018, covering the city in black smoke. But Superior's population of 27,000 is considered too small to require permanent government air pollution monitors nearby despite the presence of the refinery, a spokeswoman for the Wisconsin Department of Natural Resources told Reuters. Read more about the system's failures at Reuters.

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Tim O'Donnell

Tim is a staff writer at The Week and has contributed to Bedford and Bowery and The New York Transatlantic. He is a graduate of Occidental College and NYU's journalism school. Tim enjoys writing about baseball, Europe, and extinct megafauna. He lives in New York City.