A Delaware non-profit receives a nearly $500,000 federal grant for a community air pollution monitoring project.
The Socially Responsible Agriculture Project in Claymont received a $497,861 grant to focus on underserved and historically marginalized communities overburdened by pollution.
Maria Payan is with the Socially Responsible Agriculture Project. She explains what the project entails.
"This will allow us to gather data, and to actually monitor the pollution and quantify factory, farm, and other emissions with the ultimate goal of addressing the problem and finding solutions," said Payan.
Payan notes the monitoring will be in Millsboro and Seaford, as well as Princess Anne in Maryland.
The non-profit will conduct air data collection of poultry byproducts and its effects on public health and the environment.
Payan explains what they hope to learn.
"It lets us capture hyper-local data, and the analytics that we can use to reduce emissions and improve public health and hopefully deliver clean air for everyone," said Payan.
Sen.Tom Carper says to fight air pollution it has to be monitored.
"In order to make sure we're managing the pollution and reducing it for the better health of people we need to measure,” said Carper. “And we provided in the Inflation Reduction Act quite a bit of money, spread out around the country to help state and local governments better measure pollution."
Funding for this grant comes from the Inflation Reduction Act and American Rescue Plan.
