Aug. 10, 2026
— Jeff Ward, Lehigh Valley News Briefs
Three years ago, “Lehigh Valley Breathes” was introduced at a press conference on the grounds of Musikfest in Bethlehem.
The air-monitoring program announced plans to put up 40 monitors to measure little particles, particulates, in the air. Northampton and Lehigh counties each put up $52,890 to cover the cost.
The expense was justified, we were told, because of pollution from trucks, warehouses, industry and whatever else sends particulates into the air. There was some doubt when it came time for Northampton County Council to vote, but the spending was approved.
Updates were to be posted to the Lehigh Valley Breathes website.
The last update was on December 2025, nine months ago.
One of the issues with approving the expense was the value of the data, and who would use it.
Those questions remain. What happened to Lehigh Valley Breathes? I’ve sent email to the project and will welcome a response.
Maybe the project is over. Maybe they just decided not to update the taxpayers, maybe something else.
It’s time for the two counties to ask how Lehigh Valley Breathes is going.
Perhaps quietly, it’s been a great success. Very quietly.
I’m asking people in the counties about this too, $106,000 of taxpayers’ money is worth looking into.
Find out what happened and if this wasn’t a success, be more wary next time.
Lehigh Valley News Briefs 
LVB has been doing extensive analysis of data since December. The previously drafted data snapshots were released as we were developing our data quality and completeness criteria and in the spring we used it that criteria to help analyze data from a much larger set of monitors. You may also be aware that we have new county executives and we thought it best to meet with before releasing the final report. You could have waited two days for an email response before publishing something that is questionably suggestive and uninformed.
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Everything I posted is public record.
The new county executives have been in office for eight months and both were aware of this project earlier.
New? Hardly.
The last update on the site was nine months ago.
Your project took public money and you haven’t kept the public informed.
By the way, I don’t need your permission to post.
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