Berkshire Benchmarks Releases State of the County Update

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PITTSFIELD, Mass. — The Berkshire Benchmarks data team recently released a State of the County Update for 2023. 
 
This brief report builds on the Berkshire Benchmarks State of the County Report published in May 2022 and highlights notable changes in regional indicators over the past year. The berkshirebenchmarks.org website has also been updated to reflect the most current available data. 
 
The purpose of the Benchmarks initiative and report is to highlight the region's successes and challenges.
 
The 2022 Berkshire Benchmarks State of the County report provided a comprehensive overview of our region's performance across eight sectors: Economy, Education, Environment, Government, Health, Housing, Social Environment, and Transportation.  
 
In the future, the Berkshire Benchmarks team will continue to monitor these and other indicators to aid with the regional understanding of changes in these sectors and whether the work happening throughout the region is having the intended impact. 
 
Berkshire Benchmarks is a collaborative initiative managed through Berkshire Regional Planning Commission (BRPC). Our sources are publicly available data, including the U.S. Census Bureau, the American Community Survey, various Massachusetts data sets, and periodic surveys of Berkshire County residents. 
 
Berkshire Benchmarks aims to work with the community to understand priorities and help inform the region on how we are doing and if we are improving. Berkshire Benchmarks enhances the region's access to quality data and analysis. 

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Dalton Air Quality Report Links Dust to Digsite

By Sabrina DammsiBerkshires Staff
DALTON, Mass. — For more than a year, neighbors of Berkshire Concrete's unauthorized dig site have complained that sand drifting into their neighborhood is affecting their air quality.
 
A five-month study is providing data that may support these claims.
 
Air Partners Collaborative of Needham monitored the air quality over five months — from October to April — using a network of monitoring sensors at strategic locations surrounding the site. 
 
Sensors were positioned west and southeast of the site at four locations: Raymond Drive, Off Prospect Street, Renee Drive, and the shooting range 80 meters northwest of the site to provide background measurements for the northwesterly winds. 
 
During the observation period, it was determined that Dalton is experiencing "extreme events of coarse particulate matter, with an aerodynamic diameter of 10 micrometers (PM10)
 
The National Ambient Air Quality Standards for PM10 is 150 micrograms per cubic meter within a 24-hour period, the report says. But Dalton is seeing concentrations reaching 1,000 to 10,000 micrograms per cubic meter during individual events. This is seven to 67 times the national standards.
 
The wind direction analysis indicates that 10 of the 12 exceedance events, or 83 percent, suggest the digsite may be contributing to the issue, but this cannot be proved with certainty.
 
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