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U.S. EPA awards Pacoima Beautiful $300,000 to target toxic reductions: Agency also awards $89,000 to UC Santa Cruz air study

Release Date: 03/17/2008
Contact Information: Francisco Arcaute (213) 244-1815, cell (213) 798-1404 arcaute.francisco@epa.gov

LOS ANGELES - The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency recently awarded $300,000 to community group Pacoima Beautiful to target high diesel emissions and promote “green” practices among auto dismantlers and $89,000 to a UC Santa Cruz air and environmental justice study.

Backed by EPA Community Action for a Renewed Environment grant funding, Pacoima Beautiful will enable Pacoima, Calif. residents – many of them Spanish speaking – to identify high diesel emissions from trucks and school buses and encourage area auto dismantlers to engage in environmentally-sound practices such as recycling and using cleaner-diesel trucks and equipment.

“We are excited to be working with Pacoima Beautiful to reduce toxics in their community,” said Matt Haber, Deputy Director for the EPA’s Air Office, Pacific Southwest region. “It is important for EPA to support research that has practical benefit for this community.”

With an $89,000 cooperative agreement from EPA’s Regional Applied Research Effort program, professors Manuel Pastor Jr., of UC Santa Cruz, Rachel Morello-Frosch of UC Berkeley, and James Sadd of Occidental College, will examine the links between near roadway air pollution, adverse birth outcomes, and vulnerability factors, especially relevant for communities like Pacoima. This research is a cooperative effort with the EPA’s Office of Research and Development.

The EPA’s Community Action for a Renewed Environment grants support community efforts that seek to reduce toxins in their community. The agency’s Regional Applied Research Effort Program funds high priority, Pacific Southwest-specific research projects with demonstrable environmental benefits.

Located near Los Angeles, Pacoima is a low-income community with 101,000 residents living in urban density, adjacent to industrial facilities, and bordered by U.S. Interstate Highways 5, 210, and California State Highway 118.

Pacoima Beautiful is dedicated to the creation of a healthy, environmentally safe, prosperous and sustainable community. For more information, please visit:
http://www.pacoimabeautiful.org/

For more information on the EPA’s various grant programs, please visit:
https://www.epa.gov/air/grants_funding.html