KAILUA-KONA — A state Department of Health employee confirmed a state-operated permanent air quality monitor in Ocean View has been offline for several days after a cellphone tower in the area was vandalized earlier this week.
Lisa Young, environmental health specialist with the DOH’s Clean Air Branch, said stations transmit data logs to the department via telephone lines or cellular communications.
“Because that didn’t happen, we weren’t able to communicate with the data logger there,” she said.
The rural nature of Ocean View, located on the southern edge of Hawaii Island, can delay repairs. Young said her understanding was that the tower was repaired Thursday and workers were on their way to dial up the monitoring station.
She believes Ocean View readings will start appearing on the state’s various vog update websites at some point today, if they don’t show up even earlier on Thursday night.
Because of its location, Ocean View deals with both ash fall and vog, and consistent readings are an important element of public health there.
A temporary monitoring station has been assembled at a site in Naalehu, where one of 10 new permanent DOH air quality monitoring stations will eventually be installed.
Young said Ocean View residents should gauge their air quality based on readings from Naalehu, which can be accessed by visiting https://bit.ly/2LtBJhY.
The next closest site to Ocean View from which the DOH draws air quality readings is the department’s permanent monitoring station in South Kona, she said.