June 15, 2005

SANTA BARBARA, CA —  The air monitoring program of Santa Barbara County Air Pollution Control District (APCD) received an award from the California Air Resources Board for excellence in air monitoring.  The awards were based on evaluation of three years of data, from 2001-2003, from air monitoring equipment. Data were evaluated for precision, accuracy, and completeness for each of the three years.

The District was considered in the category of a large monitoring network (10 monitoring sites or more), and tied for first place in that category with the Bay Area Air Quality Management District.

Pictured (left to right) APCD Air Monitoring and Information Technology Staff:
Paula Gregoire-Jones, Mike Willis, Howard Hammeren, Bob van Beveren (Data Processing Supervisor), Marc Moritsch, Bobbie Bratz (Community Programs Supervisor), Joel Cordes, Jim Swihart, and Janice Kettler.

The Chief of the Air Quality Management Branch at the Air Resources Board presented APCD Director Terry Dressler with the award at a May conference. Said Dressler, “Dedication to technical excellence is one of our core values here at the District. This award is evidence that the members of our air monitoring and information technology teams have internalized this value. We are proud of their accomplishment.”

The District has a network of 17 monitoring stations in Santa Barbara County that measure air pollutants and transmit data electronically to the District’s Data Acquisition System  Some pollutants, such as ozone, are monitored  continuously over a 24-hour period, and ozone levels are posted hourly on this website. For more information on the District’s air monitoring network, see Monitoring Air Quality.

For more details on the award, see this page (PDF file) on the Air Resources Board website.