Background:
The California Air Resources Board (CARB) Community Air Protection (CAP) Program provides incentives to fund a variety of emission and exposure reduction projects in Assembly Bil 617 (AB 617) communities. Through a community-led participatory budgeting process, the Eastern Coachella Valley (ECV) Community Steering Committee (CSC) allocated $4.57 million in CAP Incentive funding to paving projects. This project falls under the Fugitive Road Dust and Off-Roading air quality priority identified in the ECV Community Emission Reductions Plan (CERP, final-cerp-july-2021.pdf) and supports the implementation of two CERP objectives (ECV-5D-02A and ECV-5D-02B).
Implementation Status:
South Coast AQMD partnered with the County of Riverside (County) and developed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to implement paving projects in the ECV. The MOU is tentatively scheduled to be presented to the County’s Board of Supervisors in the first quarter of 2026.
Prior to the MOU with the County, South Coast AQMD released two Program Announcements (PA) PA2024 – 01 (Friday, September 29, 2023 through Friday, December 29, 2023) and PA2024 – 01R (Friday, February 23, 2024 through Friday, March 15, 2024) to solicit contractor(s) to implement paving projects in the ECV; however, these PAs did not result in an executed contract. As an alternative approach, the South Coast AQMD Board approved initiating a collaborative partnership with the County on August 1, 2025 (August 2025 South Coast AQMD Governing Board Meeting – Item 6).
Paving Project Plan:
To implement the Paving Project, South Coast AQMD worked closely with the ECV CSC to develop a Paving Project Plan (Project Plan). The Final Project Plan underwent two modifications approved by CARB in August 2023 and April 2025, which can be accessed below along with the corresponding CARB approval letters.