EPA Administrator Michael Regan stands near the Marathon Refinery in Reserve, La., on November 16, 2021. The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday awarded grants for air quality monitoring projects in 37 states.
Gerald Herbert / AP
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Gerald Herbert / AP
EPA Administrator Michael Regan stands near the Marathon Refinery in Reserve, La., on November 16, 2021. The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday awarded grants for air quality monitoring projects in 37 states.
Gerald Herbert / AP
WASHINGTON – The Environmental Protection Agency on Thursday awarded funding to air quality monitoring projects in 37 states, focusing on minority communities and other areas suffering from overburdened pollution.
A total of 132 projects will receive $53.4 million to strengthen air quality monitoring near chemical plants, refineries and other industrial sites – part of the Biden administration’s pledge will focus on environmental justice in communities adversely affected by industrial pollution for decades.
The grants are funded by sweeping health and climate legislation passed in August and a coronavirus relief plan passed by Congress last year.
“This money will be invested where it is needed most,” said EPA Administrator Michael Regan. he said.
Eight projects are being funded located in neighborhoods that Regan visited during his “Journey to Justice” tour of long-polluted communities.
“Everyone, no matter where they live, deserves clean water and clean air and the opportunity to live a healthy life,” said Regan, the first black person to head the EPA.
The grants follow enforcement actions announced by Regan in January to conduct unannounced inspections of chemical plants, refineries and other industrial sites in the three Coastal countries. The bay is suspected of polluting the air and water and causing health problems for nearby residents.
Recipients include the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, a New Orleans-based advocacy group that has pushed for tighter federal oversight of the 85-mile (137 km) stretch from New Orleans to Baton Rouge, officially known as the Mississippi River Chemistry Corridor but more commonly known as Cancer Alley. The area has a number of hotspots where the risk of cancer is much higher than what is considered acceptable by the EPA. The group will receive nearly $500,000 to help community groups monitor their air quality and “become more active and effective in citizen engagement,” the EPA said.
The Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality received nearly $480,000 to set up and operate a temporary air monitoring site in St. James, home to many petrochemical plants and refineries. The EPA says the device will enable near-real-time data on air quality.
The state agency will also receive $422,000 to perform air quality monitoring in the Alexandria-Pineville area between the two wood processing facilities.
The Louisiana Environmental Action Network will receive $500,000 for air quality assessments across Louisiana’s industrial corridor, and the Mississippi Department of Environmental Quality will receive $500,000 for air pollution assessments. in the Cherokee community.
Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city by population, will receive $500,000 to monitor four dangerous air pollutants that pose a risk to communities there.
