Dearborn issues first year-end air quality report

Published Oct. 8, 2025

The City of Dearborn has released its first comprehensive year-end air quality report. The 2024 Air Quality Report, published by the Dearborn Department of Public Health, provides data on local air quality trends and tracks progress on the City’s air quality interventions. The full report is available to view at Dearborn.gov/EnvironmentalHealth. 

Dearborn Mayor Abdullah H. Hammoud stated, “This air quality data provides the City with the information needed to make data-driven decisions that improve air quality and protect public health. It also helps guide policies tailored to Dearborn’s specific needs.”

In 2024, Dearborn Public Health (DPH), with support from MiNextCities, launched a citywide air quality monitoring network in partnership with JustAir, a Michigan-based startup. Ten air quality monitors were installed across Dearborn to measure neighborhood-level conditions and make air data more accessible to residents. Through a public dashboard—available in both English and Arabic—residents can monitor real-time air quality and sign up for alerts when pollution levels reach levels of concern. This report highlights the program’s progress and key findings to date.

Among the findings: Dearborn’s monitors collected over 1 million air quality measurements in 2024, and more than 200 residents have subscribed to the City’s alert system. Throughout 2024, the City issued over 41,500 text alerts, delivering timely information to the community via the air quality dashboard.

The report also outlines notable trends, including the city’s “best” and “worst” air quality days, daily patterns consistent with traffic and temperature fluctuations, and seasonal shifts across Dearborn’s neighborhoods.

Hayat Hachem, DPH Senior Data Scientist, stated, “This report is more than just a snapshot; it turns over a year’s worth of data into insight. It’s the foundation to give our community the tools to understand their environment and take charge of their health.”

Dearborn’s air monitoring network also serves as a tool to track improvements following City-led actions to curb pollution, particularly in neighborhoods bordering industrial zones that have long faced disproportionate air quality burdens. 

These actions include a $4 million settlement with a trucking company to curb fugitive dust emissions, accompanied by a suite of strengthened local controls: Dearborn’s enhanced bulk storage ordinance (among the most rigorous in Michigan) and expanded enforcement tools to curb vehicle track-out and other industrial dust violations, including legal action against harmful commercial operations.

City plans to expand air quality network 
DPH will expand the monitoring network to 11 stations in 2025, adding upgraded equipment to measure additional pollutants, including ozone. Two sites, Hemlock Park and Schemansky Park, will receive enhanced sensors for particulate matter (PM), the city’s most prevalent pollutant of concern. 

New educational signage will be installed at each monitoring site, with updated designs and translations in both English and Arabic.

The department is using insights from this data to guide future monitoring efforts and inform environmental health planning.

More information about the City’s air quality improvement efforts is available at Dearborn.gov/EnvironmentalHealth.

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