Wisconsin will get almost $1.5 million from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to monitor air quality in communities that are vulnerable to air pollution.
The state Department of Natural Resources, the city of Madison and the Children’s Health Alliance of Wisconsin — which is affiliated with Children’s Hospital of Wisconsin — will split the funding, according to a news release from the EPA.
The agency said it will funnel more than $50 million into expanding air monitoring nationally. In all, money will fund 132 projects proposed across the country. About $20 million will come from the 2021 American Rescue Plan, and another $32 million was allocated by the Inflation Reduction Act passed in August.
Officials and advocates said building out community monitoring will help give residents a clearer picture of what’s in the air they breathe.
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The DNR received $500,000 to study air quality in specific neighborhoods in Milwaukee that have been disproportionately affected by toxic air, said Katie Praedel, the agency’s air monitoring section chief. It will build on monitoring that the agency has done for decades to inform the public about air quality and ensure certain pollutants regulated under the Clean Air Act remain within safe levels.
Using existing monitors at the Sixteenth Street clinic’s Greenfield location and the DNR’s Southeast Region Office as a baseline and conducting mobile monitoring elsewhere in the area — including distributing air quality sensors that residents can install in their own homes — they hope to identify small pollution hotspots that can be improved upon, Praedel said.
Previous monitoring has shown that the main air hazards in the area come from diesel emissions, she said. Some of them are fine inhalable particles which the EPA is examining to determine whether they could be linked to the severity of COVID-19 infections.
The particles are linked to asthma, a particular concern in Milwaukee, which ranked second in the nation for the number of asthma-related emergency room visits according to a 2021 report by the Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America. The DNR and Children’s Health Alliance of Wisconsin, which received the same sum of money, plan to work together to raise awareness in the community about air quality and asthma triggers with the goal of improving health outcomes, Praedel said.
“COVID shed a light onto air quality. It’s always kind of in the background,” she said. “A lot of times, with small-scale studies like these getting people involved, it almost brings people peace of mind about air quality.”
The city of Madison received nearly $430,000 to install air quality sensors to measure air pollution across the city, said Jessica Price, the city’s sustainability and resilience manager. They’ll work with partners including the Foundation for Black Women’s Wellness, Latino Health Council and the Hmong Institute to raise awareness of health disparities caused by differences in air quality, she said.
Research has shown that low-income, Black, brown and Indigenous communities are disproportionately exposed to environmental hazards, including toxic air. In Wisconsin, a June analysis from the environmental advocacy group Clean Wisconsin found that residents of color are exposed to more particulate air pollution than white residents. Wisconsin had the third-highest racial disparity in the nation, the analysis found.
EPA Administrator Michael Regan said last week that this funding advances the Biden administration’s commitment to invest in areas that have suffered decades of environmental injustice.
This story is a product of the Mississippi River Basin Ag & Water Desk, an editorially independent reporting network based at the University of Missouri School of Journalism in partnership with Report For America and the Society of Environmental Journalists, funded by the Walton Family Foundation.
Read More:Wisconsin gets nearly $1.5 million in EPA money to check air pollution
2022-11-11 13:01:50