I spoke with Assemblywoman Ellen Jaffee, D-Suffern, this morning about Rockland’s soon-to-be permanent air monitor. Staff writer Laura Incalcaterra reported this week at after 37 years of waiting, the state Department of Conservation would be placing a permanent air monitor on county-owned land at the Orchards of Concklin. See story here.

Some have questioned whether the location will truly reflect the kind of pollution most Rocklanders deal with daily. A temporary monitor was located near the Palisades Center in West Nyack, by the Thruway, at one point, and before then at the Dr. Robert Yeager Center in Ramapo. Jaffee said she’s asked about that, but, she said, “the realities of air monitors is, they’re regional … You don’t have to be right on top of the spot to record the data.”

She pointed out that criteria for siting an air monitor include accessibility, security and cost. “The cost here is free,” Jaffee pointed out, because it’s on county land.

Jaffee said that she was originally told the air monitor would be installed in September. Now, she said, she has heard from DEC that “they will be charging it up by this weekend.”

Monitors measure ozone and fine particulate matter. Rockland’s numbers have been extrapolated from other monitors in the region, and officials say they think that Rockland’s new monitor will show similar numbers.

Time will tell, though. While Lovett, the coal-fired power generating plant in Tomkins Cove, has been torn down, and the Bowline Power Plant is used less frequently, Rockland still has significant sources of pollution, most siginficantly, the New York State Thruway that cuts through the middle. “We’ll get an idea of what’s happening here in Rockland,” Jaffee said … that’s what this is about, to find out if we have local issues.”

Both County Chairwoman Harriet Cornell, D-West Nyack, and County Executive C. Scott Vanderhoef have said the monitor will help the county see if there are measurable impacts from various intitiatives by county government to reduce carbon emissions.

FILE PHOTO: From left, George Froehlich, of the Departmnent of Environmental Conservation’s Bureau of Quality Insurance, and Mark Habetter, from the department’s bureau of Air Quality Surveillance, install a temporary air quality monitor on the roof of a building at the Dr. Robert L. Yeager Health Center in Ramapo June 22, 2004. The monitor, which will measure ozone levels, is being installed as a response to questions about the air quality in Rockland County.