This grant agreement provides funding to padep to conduct ambient air monitoring of pollutants of greatest concern in communities with environmental and health outcome disparities stemming from…

This grant agreement provides funding to padep to conduct ambient air monitoring of pollutants of greatest concern in communities with environmental and health outcome disparities stemming from pollution and the covid-19 pandemic. Using particulate matter (PM) as a surrogate for a larger pollutant set, this project aims to gather critical data to help federal, state, and local partners identify sources of air pollution, clarify their relative contributions, and develop mitigation strategies to improve health outcomes for the people who live and work in the environmental justice communities along the waterfront in delaware county, pennsylvania. Activities:the activities will be used to support community and local efforts to monitor their own air quality and to promote air quality monitoring partnerships between communities, state, and local governments that: leverage existing air quality expertise, expand use of community monitoring groups and other approaches that give the community a voice in the monitoring of the air quality, and build a foundation of trusting relationships and enhanced understanding from which sustainable solutions to community air pollution problems can be found. The activities to be performed in this project include the collection and openly sharing of air pollution data for community groups and other interested entities to use. The data will have high spatial and temporal resolution and will be used as a tool to assist in answering community concerns. Utilizing GIS to focus on transportation corridors, vulnerable populations, and local neighborhoods, up to 50 modulair-PM monitors will be installed within the study area, with several monitors installed outside the study area to provide background data. Modulair sensors measuring CO, NO2, and O3 in addition to PM will be installed at a rate of 10% of the total sensor population to expand the parameter set as well as provide localized meteorological information. Coordination with community partners and communication of the data and findings with researchers, legislators, and the public will be a key focus and will provide a basis for additional future research in the area on impacts of PM. Subrecipient:to ensure effective interpretation of the data and communication to the public (the area of the study is an environmental justice [EJ] community), padep will be working in conjunction with academic resources and delegating certain functions to the local authorities. The academic review of the data will be conducted by johns hopkins university to ensure third-party analysis and findings. And the communications portion will be delegated to delaware county to organize local public meetings and provide simple informational literature or otherwise meet similar physical communications needs.outcomes:the immediate outputs of the delaware county waterfront air quality monitoring project are raw data and community networks. Including near real-time, temporally, and spatially dense datasets of PM1, PM2.5 and PM10 and quantification of O3, no, NO2, and CO. The grantee will develop of a substantial set of spatially and temporally diverse data for use in future planning efforts and environmental mitigation. This project will establish a network of collaboration of local governments, community groups, researchers, and stakeholders that are already working in the study area. The PA DEP will work with partners to accomplish the aims of the PM monitoring project. Local and regional partners include delaware county, the city of chester, marcus hook borough and its environmental advisory council, the chester environmental partnership, the center of excellence in environmental toxicology, the foundation for delaware county, and the delaware valley regional planning commission. Other deliverables and expected outcomes include a heat map and extemporal hot spots of high PM levels identified, ongoing regional and local dialogue and collaboration, identificatio