Millvale is a clean air community where people breathe easy indoors and outdoors.
All of our air quality initiatives center around three goals – measuring impact, minimizing exposure to harmful pollutants, and creating an engaged culture.
In 2017 Millvale developed an award-winning Breathe Easy Air Quality Plan designed specifically for the community from a combination of research, data collection, analysis, and community members’ input. Millvale will work to implement the recommendations, prioritizing recommendations that have an appropriate cost, impact, and timeline given the funding available. Considerations are made for both outdoor, and indoor air quality initiatives.
One portion of the Breathe Easy Air Quality Plan consisted of air quality testing. In 2019 several sensors were placed in the Borough to gain an understanding of how the time of day, the proximity to roads and trees, and valleys affect the air quality in different portions of the Borough. An Air Quality Dashboard was created in 2019 to educate residents and visitors of Millvale on the status and trends of air quality in Millvale. Data from these sensors are used to change the color of an Air Quality Beacon being installed at Mr. Smalls bell tower in 2025. This highly visible reminder raises awareness of local air quality by using colors from the Air Quality Index (AQI).
In order to reduce the impacts of poor air quality on young lungs, the Millvale Community Library established a Clean Air Hub including high quality filtration and the ability for community members to check out air quality monitors just like books. In 2021, community members led by Millvale Ecodistrict Collaborative partners raised funds for Allegheny Land Trust’s conservation of Girty’s Woods, a 165 acre highly forested site. In 2022, we supported Allegheny Land Trust to protect an additional 62 acres of forest and farmland. Together, these projects both protect and enhance Millvale’s air quality.
Building upon the findings of the Breathe Easy Plan, evolveEA and New Sun Rising teamed up to create the Community Air Toolkit. Whether you are a part of a community that is concerned about air pollution, a member of a small group of motivated citizens, or a single person with a big vision, this toolkit can help you build your community’s capacity to make a change related to air quality.