Coastal Bend Air Quality Partnership seeks PM2.5 monitor for San Patricio County

Sharon Riley Murphy, executive director of the Coastal Bend Air Quality Partnership, asked San Patricio County commissioners to continue supporting the regional air-quality partnership and to back plans to install a PM2.5 monitor in San Patricio County.

Murphy said the Coastal Bend airshed includes both Nueces and San Patricio counties and that emissions interact across the region. The partnership completed its first air-quality plan last year and held seven public open houses across the two counties to gather comments, she said. She told the court that the EPA had scheduled a PM2.5 monitor for San Patricio County in December of the previous year but that the install date had been moved to August 2025; the county currently has no PM2.5 monitor, she said.

Murphy described additional partnership work: pilot monitoring in schools, additional PM2.5 and ozone monitoring, and “fingerprinting” (source attribution) to identify and address emission sources directly. She thanked commissioners who have supported the partnership and asked for continued cooperation and for the county to include the partnership in budget considerations.

Why it matters: PM2.5 (fine particulate matter) is a regulated air pollutant with health impacts; having a local monitor allows county officials and the public to track concentrations and better target mitigation.

What commissioners heard and next steps Commissioners received the partnership’s annual report and indicated the item would be included for budget consideration. Murphy said she would bring the annual report later in the year and asked to coordinate with county staff on site selection and community outreach. No formal county appropriation was made at the meeting; the judge said the partnership’s request would be put into the county’s budget considerations.

Quotes "We are in contact with EPA making sure that that monitor does come to San Pat County because there is no PM2.5 monitor in San Pat County," Murphy said. "We're also putting additional monitors, doing pilot plans in our schools ... and doing some PM2.5 and ozone monitoring and fingerprinting to make sure that we can determine exactly where the emissions are coming from so we can address those sources directly."

Ending Murphy said she will return later in the year with a full annual report and that the county’s participation in the partnership will be considered during budget workshops.