By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent

EAST LANSING, Mich. — A new mobile laboratory to measure the amount of pollutants in the air will soon take to the road in southeastern Michigan.

The project, AirCare2, takes after its parent project, AirCare1, a mobile lab that spends half its time in Detroit and the other half in Los Angeles. It measures fine particles of pollution in the air to help determine how they affect human health.

The five-year effort in California, which is ongoing, is being funded by an $8 million grant from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Although the goals of the two labs seem closely related, the latest lab is more up-to-date.

“AirCare1 was the first of these mobile labs,” said Jason Cody, a spokesman for Michigan State University, the home of AirCare2. “AirCare2 has newer technology. It has a newer, more advanced air particle concentrator.”

The air particle concentrator sucks in air from the outside atmosphere and can put it into aerosol form, Cody said. This makes it easier to study.

Professor Jack Harkema, a pathobiologist and diagnostic investigator at MSU’s College of Veterinary Medicine, is heading up this particular AirCare2 project. He and other scientists involved in the research know that ultra-fine particles in the air can cause illness or make people who are already ill more sick, but they don’t understand enough about exactly how these pollutants operate and which ones are the worst.

Cody said the team will focus on transient air pollution, which is pollution that can drift from one place to the next.
“The plan is to do some testing on healthy humans,” he said. They will also test animals.

Cody stated they “are still doing some tweaking” with the AirCare2’s components, so it hasn’t gone out on the road yet, but he expects it to in the next few weeks. It will be in Washtenaw County or Wayne County for several months.

The mobile laboratory weighs 36,000 pounds, is 53 feet in length and has 450 square feet of laboratory space. The center cost $400,000 to build. It is housed in a converted semi-trailer. AirCare2 was funded in 2007 by a Strategic Partnership Grant, which is part of the MSU Foundation. Funding also came from several other sources.

Another similar project that might be done using AirCare2 is aimed at areas near large livestock farms. The proposed research is a response to concerns on the state and national levels about the possible effects large livestock operations might have on the health of those who live nearby.

The research, as envisioned by animal science researcher Wendy Powers-Schilling, would determine “baseline emissions, mitigation strategies and modeling community exposures of particulate, airborne pathogen and gaseous emissions from animal feeding operations,” according to a 2007 MSU Research News brief announcing several new projects.

This research would use AirCare2 to conduct studies at actual farm sites.