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Proposals for cleaner air debated
WHITE PLAINS ­ Government can lead the way toward cleaner air by setting more stringent emissions standards and fuel requirements for its buses, cars and trucks, speakers at a conference on air quality said yesterday.
Read the whole article here.

Clearing the Air in Westchester
Andrew Darrell
According to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, more than half of all Americans live in counties that fail to meet basic healthy air standards for ozone pollution, or smog, including everyone in the five boroughs of New York City and Westchester.
Read the whole article here.


Excerpts from
the Action Plan

Click here to view Westchester's Air Quality Report card
from the American Lung Association

Click here for Westchester's Healthy Air Action Plan

And here for "Diesel and Health in America, the Lingering Threat",

A Brief Explanation of the FCWC and WESC Air Quality Campaigns

  • FCWC has advocated environmental issues since 1965.
  • Air pollution has become a “hot topic” that we have taken on.
  • The EPA recently announced that Westchester is in non-attainment for PM2.5. This means that Westchester has too much of a certain pollution: fine particulate matter size 2.5. The smaller the particle, the deeper into your lungs it can go.
  • We are also in non-attainment for a second type of air pollution: ozone.
  • Because of this, FCWC launched a “Healthy Air for Westchester County” Campaign to help Westchester County REDUCE air pollution, and be in attainment for these two types of air pollution.
  • We have held 2 conferences to educate the public about air pollution problems and solutions.
  • The first conference influenced County Legislator Tom Abinanti to ask FCWC to put together a group of environmental organizations who could write a report on what to do to reduce air pollution in Westchester.
  • This group is called the Healthy Air Task Force, and the report is called the, “Healthy Air Action Plan for Westchester County.”
  1. The three most important actions we would like the County to enact are:
    Replace the dirty diesel fuel we use to heat our homes with, with the cleaner diesel fuel called “Ultra Low Sulfur Diesel Fuel” (ULSDF)- which has only 15 ppm (parts per million) of the pollutant, Sulfur.
  2. Retrofit and use ULSDF for Westchester County owned and contracted diesel vehicles such as: trucks, and buses (which are called on-road vehicles)…
  3. …and construction equipment (which are called off-road vehicles).


WESC can play a major role in getting their school districts to:

  1. Enact a no-idling policy on school property. (Short term goal)
  2. Replace all pre-1995 school buses with buses that use ULSDF and have retrofits. (Long term goal)
  3. Retrofit the ones in between 1995 and 2004, that they are currently using.
  4. Include in their school bus contracts that they will rent or buy only buses that are retrofitted and use ULSDF, and not use buses pre 1995. (Long term goal)

WESCers will educate their parents, teachers, friends and other students about this air-pollution reduction initiative and students will set up meetings with the Director of Transportation and the Superintendent of their schools to discuss this air pollution-reduction initiative.

 
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