Open-source community environmental monitoring for West Virginia — keeping watch on the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the land around us.
In one sense this grew out of the Kanawha Valley Air Quality Monitoring project at Create WV. But it converged with work that was already happening — neighbors doing their own testing and civic monitoring, hearing about something going on, going out to measure it themselves, and helping one another talk with the DEP, EPA, and whoever else it took to get a problem addressed. That community effort pre-dated the air-sensor project; what Create WV is adding is the shared systems — the sensors, the data, the maps, the reporting — to unify and strengthen it.
Partners and collaborators include WVCAG (WV Citizen Action Group), WV Rivers, municipalities and other member organizations of the WV Environmental Council, and the volunteer community members who advocate for their neighbors and their environment.
Air is where we started, but air is really one tool — and one symptom — of a bigger picture. What we breathe, drink, and eat, and what our ecosystem experiences, are all connected. So alongside community air sensors you'll find water quality, drinking-water violations, reported spills, permitted pollution sources, and abandoned gas wells on this site.
Where government, law, regulation, and enforcement fall short, our goal is to stay informed, break down the transparency barriers, help triage serious issues, and track the trends — so that we, as people, can push for better policy and action. And to act as an alert system when official channels are slow to warn us — or to help them.
Readings are shown as-is for community awareness. Community sensors are not regulatory instruments — treat the data as a helpful signal, not an official determination, and for health decisions during smoke or pollution events also check AirNow.gov.
And the accountability layers are a separate kind of fact: a permit or a violation is a legal state, not a measurement. We keep those distinct from the sensor readings on purpose, so a nearby facility is context to look into — never proof that it caused what a sensor saw.
Everything here is open. Read the code, file an issue, run your own instance, or add a sensor. Repo & docs: github.com/createwv/airwv.
Have a question, want to get a sensor into the network, or run this for your own community? Send us a note →