Specialized monitoring vehicles have been collecting detailed air quality data throughout Bakersfield neighborhoods since June as part of a statewide initiative to address pollution in underserved communities.
The fleet is part of a $27 million Statewide Mobile Monitoring Initiative launched by the California Air Resources Board in partnership with Aclima, a California-based tech company focused on improving public health and reducing emissions.
"We have specialized sensors that we built and deployed for integration into the vehicles. Those sensors measure all the different pollutants that are important to us, and we take a measure of them every second," said Davida Herzl, CEO and co-founder of Aclima.
The initiative deploys 40 vehicles across 64 underserved communities throughout California, tracking pollutants including black carbon, carbon dioxide, and carbon monoxide at a hyperlocal level.
"What that means is that it can vary between 5 to 7x from one street to the next and so because of that, we need to get very granular pictures of pollution to understand exactly what all the pollution sources are contributing to," said Herzl.
Beyond environmental benefits, the program creates local employment by hiring drivers from within the monitored communities.
"What Aclima stands for means a lot to me personally. Measuring air quality, I have a lung condition and so actually knowing that somebody is doing something about our air quality is really important to me," said Samantha Rice, an Aclima driver.
After collection, the data is transmitted to the California Air Resources Board for publication and analysis.
"In the state of California, there's a law called AB617 that actually requires the state to do something about pollution sources, but up until now they haven't had the data to really pursue these issues," said Herzl.
Aclima is expected to collect data in Bakersfield through March of next year.
This story was reported on-air by a journalist and has been converted to this platform with the assistance of AI. Our editorial team verifies all reporting on all platforms for fairness and accuracy.
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