Ironbound Community Corporation (ICC) Environmental Monitoring

The Ironbound Community Corporation is a non-profit advocacy organization dedicated to supporting the Ironbound community of Newark, New Jersey. One important issue for ICC is pollution coming from 34 waste facilities, including New Jersey’s largest garbage incinerator. In 2009, ICC received a 2-year, $100,000 CARE Level I grant from the EPA to conduct environmental monitoring. In 2015, EPA provided additional support by lending four air quality sensors to help with monitoring efforts. This program allows ICC to address key areas of concern—for example, by conducing monitoring with the goal reducing childhood asthma, which affects 25% of school children in greater Newark. For EPA this is a proof of concept program, created to study the effectiveness of citizen science equipment lending before implementing similar program and other communities.