The city of Delano continues to hold air quality meetings to benefit its residents

April 13, 2023 /

The Central California Asthma Collaborative (CCAC) continues to provide the residents of Delano with resources to become advocates within their community to improve air quality.

These meetings have been a catalyst on why air quality is such an important conversation to have among the community and the potential strategies to help improve the air quality in Delano.

“Our next community meeting will be discussing what work needs to be done as well as what other monitors can be placed in Delano besides the ones in the schools currently,” said Sammie Meneses, Climate and Environmental Justice Associate with CCAC.

As this is their fourth meeting, Meneses said there is interest from the community coming to these meetings and being more involved because the community members are in control of the issues and solutions in Delano that they want to prioritize.

“Some of the things that the community members have asked for are more outreach about the meetings and more examples of how other communities formed their community steering committees and incentive programs. Also, more visuals and education on air pollution/air quality,” said Meneses.

The next steps are to provide examples of what incentive programs there are in other communities, how these steering committees were formalized, how to do outreach to the community about these meetings and provide a case study and visual representation of air quality in Delano.

New air monitors will be installed around the city of Delano and a topic that will be discussed in the next few meetings is where in the community they would like these monitors to be installed.

Some resources that are available to improve air quality are SJVAir.com, which provides flyers, infographics, and educational workshops on air quality.

These resources provide real-time data of the monitors that send alerts to residents and the school district to provide information on how they can protect themselves and their families on recommendations for masks, when to go outside or not, etc.

Meneses said everyone can ensure students are breathing clean air at school by subscribing to SJVAir.com. This provides real-time air quality alerts that can help protect students from going outside if the air quality is bad. Also, following the appropriate guidelines for when there is poor air quality.

The next meeting will be on April 19th at 5:30 p.m. at 925 Ellington, St, Delano, CA. The collaborative will do a quick recap of the previous meetings, an interactive activity discussing air quality, where are some other places to put air monitors, and formalizing the community steering committee.

“Please attend the next community meeting on April 19th at 5:30 p.m.. It will be a hybrid format. There will be food provided and it is open to the public. This is a great opportunity for the voices of the community to talk about their concerns and solutions on air quality,” said Meneses.

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