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July 26, 2005
The South Coast Air Quality Management District and Fernangeles
Elementary School in Sun Valley will conduct an open house today for a
mobile air monitoring station placed at the school to measure toxic air
pollution in the community.
“AQMD is committed to responding to community concerns about toxic air
pollution and its potential health effects on residents, particularly
children,” said Barry Wallerstein, AQMD’s executive officer.
“Air samples collected at this mobile monitoring station will help
address community concerns as well as expand AQMD’s scientific understanding
of toxic air pollution in the region.”
Today’s open house, from 1 p.m. to 4 p.m., will give students, parents
and residents an opportunity to learn firsthand about the methods being used
to collect air toxics data.
AQMD placed monitoring instruments at Fernangeles Elementary School as
part of its Multiple Air Toxics Exposure Study III (MATES III), which aims
to update toxic air pollution levels and toxic emission inventories and use
those data to determine the health risk from air toxics across the
Southland. (MATES III fact sheet)
Monitoring at Fernangeles began on June 3 and is slated to last six
months. Air sampling also will be conducted at additional sites in Sun
Valley, funded by a grant to AQMD from the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency’s (EPA) National Air Toxics Community-Based Program, an initiative
designed to assist state and local communities in characterizing and
reducing their local air toxics problems.
The other proposed sites are at a Los Angeles County fire training
station, a Los Angeles Unified School District maintenance yard, Francis
Polytechnic High School and Stonehurst Elementary. In addition, AQMD has
funded and conducted sampling for particulate matter and hexavalent
chromium, a cancer-causing chemical, at various Sun Valley locations over
the past few years.
The monitoring station at Fernangeles is housed in a large metal shipping
container and measures more than 20 toxic air contaminants including diesel
exhaust, benzene, 1,3-butadiene and formaldehyde -- all pollutants that have
been linked to increased occurrences of serious illness such as cancer.
Children are especially at risk of exposure to air pollution given their
developing lungs, tendency to play outdoors and the fact that they breathe
in more air per body mass than adults.
AQMD staff expects to complete a final report on the Fernangeles School
air monitoring project in mid-2006.
AQMD is the air pollution control agency for Orange County and major
portions of Los Angeles, San Bernardino and Riverside counties.
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