EPA Announces a $657,840 Community-Scale Air Toxics Monitoring Grant to the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency
The Puget Sound Clean Air Agency will receive a $657,840 U.S. Environmental Protection Agency grant to help identify air toxics trends for the Puget Sound region by monitoring diesel particulate, wood smoke, ethylene oxide, and other hazardous air pollutants. Nationally, EPA announced the selection of 11 air toxics monitoring projects to receive $5 million in funding under the agency’s Community-Scale Air Toxics Ambient Monitoring grants program. These grants will help monitor and provide important information to communities on air toxics, also known as hazardous air pollutants.
The EPA is providing a grant of $657,840 to the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency to study local levels of air toxics. PSCAA aims to characterize the emissions and health impacts of diesel particulate, wood smoke, ethylene oxide, and other hazardous air pollutants by making measurements at multiple locations over the course of a year. The areas of study will include PSCAA Community, Equity and Access focus areas including the Duwamish Valley, International District, and Tacoma Tideflats industrial area, as well as residential areas in King and Pierce Counties. By comparing these results to measurements from previous studies in the region, PSCAA will be able to see how air toxics concentrations and risks have changed over time as the region’s population and emission sources have changed. PSCAA will engage with communities to help establish where and what air toxics to analyze in a community-directed sampling campaign. It will also perform an environmental justice analysis of air toxics risks to see how gaps in equity have changed in these communities
Background
As EPA pursues its mission to protect human health and the environment, the agency periodically awards grants to help state, local and tribal air agencies conduct air quality monitoring projects to address localized air toxics issues. Air toxics, also known as hazardous air pollutants, are linked to cancer or other serious health effects. Under the Clean Air Act, EPA currently regulates 187 listed air toxic pollutants.
Working with state, local and tribal air agencies on issues related to air quality strengthens our collective scientific knowledge and skills and helps EPA and our partners meet the needs of the American public. EPA anticipates providing selected agencies funding for their work in fiscal years 2021 and 2022.
For more information about the air toxics monitoring project, please contact Joanna Cruse at 206-689-4067 or joannac@pscleanair.gov.