After more than a century of exposure to pollution from multiple sources that has led to higher rates of lung cancer and lung disease than in other parts of the county, West Indianapolis will soon have its own network of air monitors.
The Marion County Public Health Department is launching a pilot project that will install five PurpleAir monitors throughout the neighborhood to detect particulate matter pollution. Also known as soot, that matter can contain many different types of chemicals that can cause serious health problems.
West Indianapolis resident Sandy Leeds, 81, said the air monitors are a first step toward cleaner air in her neighborhood.
“It may not get done when I’m still alive, but maybe somebody else’s child will be here for it. We got to start somewhere,” she said.
Data from the monitors will be available for anyone to view online through the PurpleAir Interactive Map.
“What we can’t do is go back in time and collect this kind of data. So, we thought this might be an opportunity for us to be more proactive,” said Jason Ravenscroft, the health department’s Water Quality and Hazardous Materials Management administrator.
Filling an air monitor gap
The health department purchased 10 PurpleAir Flex air quality monitors as part of a federal public health tracking grant through the Centers for Disease Prevention and Control.
Five of those will be installed in the West Indianapolis neighborhood, southwest of downtown.
The monitors will help fill a gap in residential air quality monitoring on the west side.
“At a minimum, I’m hopeful that people can use that information to make personal decisions, or understand what the quality of the air is,” Ravenscroft said.
The Indiana Department of Environmental Management tracks air monitors at four sites within the inner loop, but none are meant to monitor the air quality specifically in residential areas.
On the west side, hundreds of homes are located near several major particulate matter emitters like the specialty starch manufacturer Ingredion, Inc., at 1515 Drover St., Allison Transmission, at 1 Allison Way, and Reworld Indianapolis Inc., formerly Covanta, which incinerates the city’s municipal trash and hazardous waste, at 2320 S. Harding St.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency compiles the data from those monitors on its Air Now website.
“You can look and see what the air quality is in your community. However, they’re based on sensors that are few and far between,” Ravenscroft said. The new monitors “might allow people to have a better sense of what the air quality is in their community, as opposed to basing it on a sensor that might be miles away.”
A century of pollution
Since the late 1800s, residents of West Indianapolis and surrounding areas have been exposed to pollution from sources like Reilly Tar & Chemical, the Chrysler Foundry and the General Motors stamping plant that exposed them to chemicals like pyridines, benzene, PFAS and particulate matter.
In the early 1970s, Interstate 70 was built through the neighborhood, exposing residents to even more pollution in the form of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds from the thousands of vehicles that passed through the area.
Air quality in the neighborhood has improved over the years, due to a combination of federal regulations like the Clean Air Act and businesses moving away.
Leeds remembers the neighborhood when pollution was at its worst.
“My family used to trap animals along Eagle Creek. The pollution that they used to dump would kill the plants and the animals down there,” she said.
With news of the Trump administration killing regulations that sought to curtail greenhouse gas emissions, like those emitted from vehicles and factories, and the administration refusing to strengthen particulate matter regulations, Leeds said she hopes a new generation will be able to use air monitor data to make the neighborhood a better place to live in.
“People are more informed, more intelligent about this than when I was growing up,” she said. “They will fight more, and as they fight more, maybe we’ll get more done.”
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Mirror Indy reporter Enrique Saenz covers west Indianapolis. Contact him at 317-983-4203 or enrique.saenz@mirrorindy.org. Follow him on Bluesky at @enriquesaenz.bsky.social.
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