Clean Air Council

The Clean Air Council’s mission is to protect everyone’s right to a healthy environment. The Council works to improve the health of Pennsylvanians by reducing air pollution and ensuring that all residents, especially in environmental justice communities, have a meaningful opportunity to participate in decisions that impact their health, welfare and local ecosystems.

In Delaware County, Clean Air Council works in partnership with Marcus Hook Area Neighbors for Public Health to implement programs in air quality, watershed protections, environmental health, and climate resilience. Since 2021 Clean Air Council has worked with Marcus Hook Neighbors and the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health to install air monitors throughout Marcus Hook, Trainer, and Chester. As part of a  two year program through the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) we recently installed 30 PurpleAir monitors in southern Delaware County communities to monitor for particulate matter, VOCs, and other air toxins. The data from these monitors will be available 24/7 in real time at bit.ly/DelcoPurpleAir, giving residents a better sense of their hyper-local air quality so they can make decisions about when it is safe to be outside, and also use the long term data to advocate for better policies to protect our air quality. 

Along with our EPA Air Monitoring Program, the Council, in partnership with Marcus Hook Neighbors and Johns Hopkins University, conducted a study of Community and Environmental Health in southern Delaware County. This study focused on communities between I95 and the Delaware River, from Marcus Hook up through the City of Chester, and examined the cumulative impact of multiple burdens on physical, mental, and environmental health. This study includes both a comprehensive survey as well as focus groups with residents, and was recently published in Environmental Justice Magazine https://www.liebertpub.com/doi/10.1089/env.2024.0079

The Council also works with Delaware County residents to advocate for better watershed protections. In addition to ongoing review of new permits and renewal applications for discharges of industrial waste in the watershed, the Council is also worked with residents to establish the Naamans, Marcus Hook, Stoney Creek Watershed. This is the only subwatershed in Delaware County that did not previously have an established group of residents working to steward, conserve, and advocate for the streams and surrounding land.

Finally, Clean Air Council, in partnership with Trainer Borough and the City of Chester, is currently revitalizing two Delaware County parks as part of our Climate Resilient Communities program. Through this program, we are working with Olin Studios to analyze the potential climate impacts to our communities along the Delaware River in Delaware County, particularly with respect to large storms, flooding, and potential damage to industrial infrastructure and produce a report for Delaware County. In addition to modeling potential climate impacts in our communities, this program seeks to develop green infrastructure projects to help mitigate climate impacts. An advisory board made up of Delaware County residents worked to develop the park projects at Wilcox Park and Trainer and Sun Village Park in Chester, to be completed in the coming months. 

The Council is fortunate to have on its staff seasoned environmental lawyers, policy experts, health educators, engineers, and community organizers. This allows the Council to approach and solve environmental issues from a variety of tactics.