Four Alaskan community air pollution monitoring projects that serve underserved communities will receive $1,357,563 from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to enhance air quality monitoring.
These Alaska projects are among 132 air monitoring projects in 37 states receiving $53.4 million from the Inflation Reduction Act and the American Rescue Plan, a Nov. 3 news release said.
“I’ve traveled across the country and visited communities who’ve suffered from unhealthy, polluted air for far too long. I pledged to change that by prioritizing underserved communities and ensuring they have the resources they need to confront longstanding pollution challenges,” EPA Administrator Michael Regan said in the release. “The air monitoring projects we are announcing today, which include the first EPA grants funded by President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act, will ensure dozens of overburdened communities have the tools they need to better understand air quality challenges in their neighborhoods and will help protect people from the dangers posed by air pollution.”
The Alaskan projects funded, according to the release, are Aleutian Pribilof Islands Association, $301,987, for air quality monitoring for solid waste burning impact; Skagway Village (Skagway Traditional Council), $397,169, for Skagway Air Quality Monitoring Network; Chilkoot Indian Association, $158,408, for evaluating outdoor-indoor air quality exposures in Haines Borough, creating a Northern Lynn Canal Intertribal Air Quality Working Group; and Alaska Department of Environmental Conservation, $499,999, for expansion and maintenance of the Alaskan Community Low-Cost Air Sensor Network.
“With this historic funding, we can make a real difference in helping communities work to improve air quality at the local level, collect air quality information where they see the greatest need and build partnerships to amplify the health benefits in underserved and overburdened communities across Alaska and the northwest,” EPA Region 10 Administrator Casey Sixkiller said in the release.
