Air Quality Grant to Reduce Wildfire Danger

The El Dorado County Air Quality Management District (AQMD) works to improve air quality and quality of life for El Dorado County residents AIR QUALITY MANAGEMENT DISTRICT Program Summary Air Quality Total Appropriations: $8,374,410 Positions: 9.0 FTE Total Revenues: $8,374,410 Extra Help: $0 Net County Cost: $0 The grant will provide approximately $355,000 to the El Dorado County Fire Safe Council

News MoLo April 2, 2022 2 min read

[EDC]

The El Dorado County Air Quality Management District (AQMD) has been awarded a Targeted Airshed Grant (TAG) from the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to reduce the generation of airborne particulate matter (PM) from several sources in western El Dorado County. The grant will provide approximately $355,000 to the El Dorado County Fire Safe Council (EDFSC) for chipping residential vegetation. Chipping is a great alternative to burning.

Historically, the EDFSC has implemented a very popular and successful chipping program with funding from a variety of sources. This new project is anticipated to start in late 2022 and will sustain the program for several years. Residents living in the western El Dorado County PM 2.5 nonattainment area (NAA) will be eligible to receive chipping services as an alternative to burning or hauling vegetation to a disposal site. This will reduce the fire risk to their homes as well as reduce emissions.

The program will help residents increase their defensible space and comply with the El Dorado County Vegetation Management Ordinance. This chipping project is estimated to directly reduce emissions from residential burning by 8 tons of PM 2.5 , 1 ton of NOx and 11 tons of VOCs per year. In addition, the reduction of wildfire risk has the potential to reduce emissions of much more PM 2.5 . For example, The 97,000 acre King Fire produced 53,000 tons of PM 2.5 in just six weeks. Part of AQMD’s mission is to reduce airborne particulate matter (PM) from El Dorado County.