It's National Air Quality Awareness Week and the Department of Energy and Environmental Protection launched a new tool to help with air quality control.

The new car is designed to travel throughout the state, particularly in areas of higher risk of air pollution.

The mobile air quality monitoring car has air pollution analyzers and can detect and record the concentration of 16 different air pollutants that includes toxic vapors and greenhouse gasses. They are also able to collect air samples to monitor.

Last month, the American Lung Association reported that Fairfield County is the most polluted in the entire New York and Newark metro area.

The acting deputy commissioner for the environmental quality branch at DEEP says this vehicle, which is one of the first of its kind in the country, will be an important tool for enforcement especially in some of the urban areas across the state.

"One of the primary purposes of the GMAT vehicle is to ensure that on a community-based level that emissions and the air that people are actually breathing in their communities are meeting those standards," said Tracy Babbidge, with DEEP.

The new car's equipment costs $300,000 largely funded by an EPA grant.