In today’s competitive economic climate, the strongest pathways towards successfully getting grants and funding are built on community coalitions, willing to work together for their futures.
Getting money and resources requires a plan, and the more far-reaching the impacts from them, the more likely we are to succeed, in increasingly competitive
grant processes.
Our South Coast Air Quality Management District (SCAQMD) measures and reports on contaminant levels in the air for the entire Southland area, but the closest monitors to Rossmoor are in Anaheim and Long Beach. This means we really don’t have a good idea about the air in Rossmoor, specifically.
We can do better, by informally providing data – data that can be reported, monitored, and considered as a first step towards tracking the presence or absence of Particulate Matter (PM2.5) in our air.
PurpleAir, the sponsor of this opportunity, makes sensors that empower Community Scientists who collect hyper-local air quality data and share it with the public. That’s a fancy way of saying, “if you’re interested in your air quality, show us what you’ve got and how you will present your information, and we’ll help you do even more, if we like it.”
This particular opportunity is something that a few of us started talking about several years ago in community meetings. The idea towards clean air and sustainability is not new, but building a coalition, towards making a positive local difference is now emerging.
Our request to you, from RHA Community Engagement Coordinator, Mary Ann Remnet, is a first step towards inviting the Rossmoor community into this conversation, and a pilot project about the air quality in Rossmoor.
We need your vote in the PurpleAir poll so they select our project and provide us the sensors for the trial run.
Keep reading this will make more sense, we promise.
Here is where we are, in this first stage of making our work public to our community: on behalf of our (new) coalition, we submitted a modest request for monitors that can be temporarily placed at our 4 elementary schools. It will be a short-term test that, if there are any significant findings, can be expanded and perhaps become more formalized into something larger, over time. Larger over time, also means having the credibility of making requests for greater funding, and bigger improvements.
This low-cost, short-term test to see whether or not there are opportunities to explore regarding our air-quality, and projections for impacts on our residents is exploratory. Particulate Matter, which is often invisible to the human eye, is shown to compromise respiratory systems, and the concern is being addressed with policymakers at all levels
of government, nationwide.
We may not have an opportunity to affect our environment at-large since many things like the interstates are beyond our scope, but one thing is sure: we do have an opportunity to be environmentally-conscious explorers.
We don’t know the timeline yet, but voting on this poll sooner, rather than later is our best bet towards participating with PurpleAir
So please help.
Here is a AQMD video that describes particulate matter and why we should care:
Are You Ready To Help??
If not now, then when? If not us, then who? I think
the answers to those questions are obvious.
So…help us out and vote in the poll
Here is the link to the poll
Look for the Mary Ann Remnet – Community Based Coalition entry as show in the image from the PurpleAir poll page. And VOTE!
You’ll likely need to set up an account with PurpleAir (it’s the only way they can control the votes) and verify your email address, but it’s an easy and quick process.
And here is the specific submission we made if you want more info on that
And, as a last request, please forward this info to anyone and everyone you know in
Rossmoor, asap and ask them to help us.
Thanks
