Part of the funding came from the Inflation Control Act
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Reed Frazier
Reed R. Fraser / State Impact Pennsylvania
Shell ethane crackers nearing completion in June 2022. Image: Reid R. Frazier
Funds from the Cut Inflation Act will help pay more than $4 million for new air monitoring around Pennsylvania.
The funding is part of a $53 million grant package awarded by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to air monitoring in environmental justice areas nationwide. The agency said it focused on communities “underserved, historically marginalized and overloaded by pollution.”
Grants will be paid to 11 projects across the state for a total of $4.27 million. Monitors will be placed around industrial resources and transportation corridors in Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, and Allentown. They will also pay for atmospheric monitoring near the shale gas development area in southwestern Pennsylvania.
“Funding these projects will ultimately give communities that have been burdened for years by polluted air and other environmental devastation a better understanding of their local air quality. , will provide the data and information needed to have a voice for real change,” EPA Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator Adam Ortiz said in a statement. “This air monitoring effort also serves the community, with local leaders working to revitalize their neighborhoods and grow their local economies.”
Matthew Mehalik, executive director of the Breathing Project, one of the nonprofits that received grants for monitoring, said his group was working near beaver shell ethane crackers to detect particulate pollution, ozone, and noxious air pollution. It said it would help install monitors to monitor substances, volatile organic compounds. county.
“This funding is intended to empower communities so that monitors understand what is happening to air quality, engage in community dialogue on environmental justice, and hold polluters accountable. ,” says Mehalik. “In fact, many locals expect to have monitors in their towns, communities, backyards and porches.”
Mehalik said part of the grant will be used to create an asthma registry at the University of Pittsburgh School of Public Health.
Funding for the project will come from $30 million from the Inflation Reduction Act passed in August and $20 million from the American Rescue Plan passed in 2021.
Some of the projects are:
-A total of $925,000 will be donated to FracTracker for air monitoring projects near shale gas sites in the Upper Ohio Valley of Pennsylvania, Ohio and West Virginia. Educate community members, elected officials, and regulators on the need for cumulative impact analysis requirements as part of all permitting procedures. ”
– $499,000 for the Anti-Smog and Pollution Group to “expand a community-owned air monitoring network” in the Monongahela River Basin near Pittsburgh;
– $392,000 to the City of Philadelphia to monitor air quality at environmental justice sites near major emitters
– $377,000 to monitor air quality in environmental justice communities along the Delaware County, Pennsylvania waterfront.
– $366,000 will be donated to ProtectPT for air monitoring in environmental justice communities in southwest Pennsylvania.
– $500,000 to groups including Lehigh University to monitor air pollution in Allentown.
– Community Housing and Empowerment Connections Inc. near Philadelphia received $357,852 for monitors in Newcastle County, Delaware.
A complete list of projects can be found here.
(Editor’s Note: The Allegheny Front is funded by the Pennsylvania Valley Foundation, whose trustee is the Allegheny Community Foundation, one of the funded groups.)
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