Air toxics pilot listening sessions

My name is Morgan Schafer, and I am with the Oregon Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), in the Cleaner Air Oregon (CAO) program. I am reaching out to you with an opportunity to help guide air quality protection efforts in your community.

The Community Health Risk Pilot project is an opportunity to look at how air pollution from many industrial sources, all together, may affect the health. In 2018 the Oregon legislature, in Senate Bill (SB) 1541, codified as ORS 468A.339, granted DEQ the authority to conduct an area risk pilot study for assessing, and regulating, the cumulative health risks from the emissions of industrial air toxics. DEQ is in the first phase of this CAO Cumulative Health Risk Pilot and is seeking input from you for determining where the study should take place.

The legislature placed restrictions on the study area based on factors such as population density, overall cancer risk attributable to air pollution, and the size of area. However, these criteria alone are not enough to limit the choice to a single area of study. Therefore, DEQ will be hosting a community listening session to get input and feedback on what additional information to consider when selecting the pilot study area.

This is an opportunity to let DEQ know about your priorities concerning air toxics for this pilot and future work.

Two public listening sessions will be held on Aug. 15, 2023, from 2-3:30 p.m. and Sept. 12, 2023, from 7-8:30 p.m. Additional information about the listening session can be found on the pilot project web page.

If you have the capacity, I would appreciate your presence and feedback at this listening session. If there are other individuals or groups that you feel we should be reaching out to, please let us know. Let me know if you have any questions, I look forward to sharing more as the listening session approaches.

Cheers,

Morgan Schafer

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