EPA’s Enhanced Air Quality Monitoring for Communities grants create a significant opportunity to advance community air monitoring, but EPA has limited staffing to support the grantees. The Environmental Protection Network (EPN) is helping to fill this gap and help advance the emerging field of community air monitoring (i.e., through advice and support on technical and policy issues) through its Community Air Monitoring Network.
To encourage and enable these projects, EPN has created a “learning network” that builds a community of practice among some of the groups that have received these EPA grants. The network is a space where grantees can interact with one another, leverage each other’s experiences and connections, and connect with pro bono experts on air monitoring and EPA grants management.
Benefits of this inclusive and collaborative learning network include:
- Peer-to-peer learning – Helping communities work on shared challenges together
- Involvement of needed expertise – Connecting grantees to relevant pro bono experts that can contribute to project success
- Moving data to action – Assisting communities in project design and execution so results get used in policies and programs to improve local air quality (often by working with Federal, state, Tribal, and local government agencies)
- Analysis of lessons learned – Reviewing project successes and failures to inform future monitoring projects and help EPA support such efforts in the future
If you would like to join our monthly air monitoring grant support calls, or learn more about our pro bono capacity-building technical assistance, please inquire here.
For more information, you can access an overview of EPN’s Community Air Monitoring Network here. You can also view additional community air monitoring resources here.