This is a competitive contract solicitation to support the California Air Resources Board (CARB or Board) research priorities for fiscal year 2021-2022. CARB staff will hold a Pre-Application Workshop on April 8, 2021 for this and related projects. CARB is encouraging proposers to form multidisciplinary teams to fulfill contract requirements. Principle Investigators (PIs) must be affiliated with University of California and California State Universities, however, CARB encourages PIs to recruit non-academic research partners and diversify research efforts and talent.
Communities in California’s Imperial Valley are subject to numerous environmental concerns due to the variety of air pollutant sources that exist in and around the region (e.g., dust from the Salton Sea, agricultural activities, traffic at the California-Mexico border, unpaved roads, industrial operations, and biomass and waste burning). The heterogeneity of the air pollutant sources and their varying influences on local and regional air quality highlight the challenges in developing a comprehensive air pollution reduction strategy for the Imperial Valley that is effective at improving health outcomes equitably.
Many Imperial County communities have been designated by CalEPA as being “disadvantaged” under SB 535, scoring among the 25% highest scoring census tracts in California in terms of the high amount of pollution people are exposed to. People living in Imperial Valley understand the history, impacts, current efforts, community needs and concerns, and have unique perspectives and ideas for meeting those needs. The objective of this research is to create a community-based and participatory project establishing research priorities and designs to address air pollution impacts and solutions in the Imperial County region. Partnering with communities in the Imperial Valley, including both community members and community organizations, will lead to developing a research path that is reflective of those voices and brings on-the-ground knowledge. CARB will also fund a review of research in the area to serve as a resource for the discussions. The review will consolidate region-specific information on air pollutant sources, atmospheric processes, air quality monitoring data, and air pollution exposure studies and include information from the most recent peer-reviewed publications, ongoing CARB outreach efforts to foster collaboration between communities and area researchers, community-led air monitoring data, and satellite remote sensing. This review will also incorporate the experience and perspectives of local residents.
The final product of this project will be a focused research plan with strategies to optimize the use of available resources and fast-track actions that will improve public health and the environment. The project will develop a comprehensive, well justified, and transparent document that describes the findings and summarizes recommendations for both short- and long-term air pollution reduction strategies that encompasses all communities in the Imperial Valley. The project will inform CARB of potential gaps in data and research needed to refine such recommendations.
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