The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has selected the non-profit Socially Responsible Agriculture Project (SRAP) of Claymont, Delaware to receive a $497,861 grant for a community air pollution monitoring project. Claymont is near Interstates 95 and 495 and was home of a now razed steel mill.
The grant is among 132 air monitoring projects in 37 states which will receive $53.4 million from President Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act and American Rescue Plan to enhance air quality monitoring in communities across the United States.
The projects are focused on communities that are historically marginalized, and burdened by pollution. It is well known that indutrial facilities and major highways are often in lower income areas. This is especially true along the Route 9 corridor in Delaware and Claymont. In Sussex County, population and housing growth has led to more homes being near plants and farms with chicken houses.
SRAP’s project will provide air data of industrial poultry pollution and its effects on public health and the environment in Millsboro and Seaford of Sussex County, Delaware, and in Princess Anne, Somerset County, MD. Partners and citizen groups will use this information to create community-oriented solutions to improve public health outcomes in the three communities, a release stated
“Funding for this project will finally give communities, some who for years have been overburdened by polluted air and other environmental insults, the data and information needed to better understand their local air quality and have a voice for real change,” said EPA Mid-Atlantic Regional Administrator Adam Ortiz. “Everyone is entitled to breathe clean air regardless of where they live or economic circumstances.”
“Our frontline and fenceline communities have, for decades, been subject to unsafe air and have suffered the long-term health consequences and complications because of it,” said Delaware U.S. Rep. Lisa Blunt Rochester. “It’s why I introduced the Public Health Air Quality Act and why today’s announcement from the EPA is so important – because it will infuse federal dollars from the American Rescue Plan and the Inflation Reduction Act to conduct critical air quality monitoring and data collection in communities across the First State, including in our environmental justice communities. I want to thank the EPA and the Biden Administration for their work to enhance our air quality, public health, and quality of life – and I look forward to continuing to work with them to fight for our environmental justice communities while strengthening environmental protections for all Delawareans.”
The air pollution monitoring projects are made possible by more than $30 million in Inflation Reduction Act funds, which supplemented $20 million from the American Rescue Plan and enabled EPA to support 77 additional projects, more than twice the number of projects initially selected to receive funding.
