AUGUSTA — The Maine Department of Environmental Protection is now using Twitter to send out its daily air quality forecasts.

The DEP says Twitter accounts have been created for the four regions where air quality alerts warning people about unhealthy air conditions have been issued in recent years. The Portland area Twitter stream is at http://twitter.com/meair_portland. The western interior region including Augusta and Waterville is at http://twitter.com/meair_lewiston. The department plans to generate tweets each day to provide the next day’s air quality forecast for those regions.

People can sign up on the DEP web site to receive the Twitter alerts.