Local air quality regulators are launching a new $3.1 million effort to research and address the Coachella Valley’s longstanding problems with dust in the air, a top official said this week.
While they’ve already started the new research efforts, they acknowledged that meaningfully reducing those problems will take a comprehensive strategy and likely more funding, neither of which is in place yet.
The plan has already started with new monitoring equipment installed around the valley to get a more precise picture of where major blowing dust “events” are happening and what causes them to be worse than usual. That’s the first step in a three-part strategy outlined at a public forum Thursday, Nov. 6, by Sarah Rees of the South Coast Air Quality Monitoring District…