Partnerships for Air Quality Training in Rural Communities of the Eastern Coachella Valley, California: Challenges, Lessons Learned, and Opportunities

Community members in the Eastern Coachella Valley (ECV), an environmental justice community within South Coast Air Quality Management District’s (South Coast AQMD’s) jurisdiction, experience impacts from multiple sources of air pollution, including agricultural and illegal burning, and the exposed Salton Sea playa. South Coast AQMD is the regulatory agency responsible for improving air quality for large areas of Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside and San Bernardino counties, including the Coachella Valley. Through a U.S. EPA funded State Environmental Justice Cooperative Agreement (SEJCA) Program, South Coast AQMD is collaborating with Desert Healthcare District, Alianza Coachella Valley, Health Assessment and Research for Communities, and local tribes, to establish an Air Quality Academy in ECV. The Air Quality Academy provides training to strengthen environmental literacy. As part of the Air Quality Academy training, three workshops have been conducted to provide training on outdoor and indoor air quality including potential sources, short- and long-term health effects of air pollutants, mitigation efforts, how to reduce exposure, and an overview of commercially available air quality sensors and their applications. Air Quality Academy participants are provided low-cost air quality sensors. The sensors generate high spatial resolution data that improves the South Coast AQMD’s Air Quality Index (AQI) blended map—a tool that produces a real-time AQI map on a 5km square grid by combining the regulatory and the air quality sensor data and helps identify local sources of fine inhalable particles (PM2.5) and inhalable particles (PM10). To date, fifteen residents have participated in the Air Quality Academy and we will continue to recruit residents. This presentation provides an overview on the development of the Air Quality Academy, project status, lessons learned, and next steps.