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Cleveland awarded $500K to enhance air quality monitoring in underserved communities

The grant comes from President Biden's Inflation Reduction Act and the American Rescue Plan.

CLEVELAND — EDITOR'S NOTE: The video above previously aired on 3News on Oct. 18, 2022. 

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has announced that the Cleveland Department of Public Health will receive $500,000 in grant funding in order to enhance air quality monitoring. 

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The grant money comes as a portion of the $53.4 million from President Joe Biden's Inflation Reduction Act that will go toward 132 air monitoring projects across 37 states. 

The funding will go toward projects in communities that are underserved, historically marginalized and overburdened by pollution.

“This grant funding will support our development of a Community Leveraged Expanded Air Network in Cleveland (CLEANinCLE) that will allow our team of partners to expand our air monitoring network into historically redlined Cleveland neighborhoods that are still experiencing negative health outcomes,” says David Hearne, Commissioner of the Division of Air Quality. "These communities present with poorer health outcomes, including diabetes, hypertension and pediatric asthma, and have been disproportionately impacted by COVID‐19." 

According to the City of Cleveland, community members will have the opportunity to participate in designing the expanded air-monitoring network via public forums, a resident advisory committee and residential interviews. 

The data gathered from the project will be given to local medical providers to show the barriers that residents are experiencing to asthma management. 

“We are thrilled to receive this support from the US EPA and to have the opportunity to engage with the community with the end goal of reducing health disparities," said Dr. David Margolius, Director of the Cleveland Department of Public Health.

The City of Cleveland announced that the Cleveland Department of Public Health will partner with Better Health Partnership, Case Western Reserve University, Cleveland Clinic Foundation, Cleveland Neighborhood Progress, and Ohio EPA on the project.

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EDITOR'S NOTE: The video above previously aired on 3News on Nov. 3, 2022. 

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