COUNTY TO GIVE POLLUTION DEVICES TO KENYA, NEPAL.Byline: Deborah Sullivan Daily News Staff Writer Ventura County's outdated air-monitoring equipment will be next-to-new for Kenya and Nepal, thanks to a United Nations project the Air Pollution Control District helped launch. ``We're taking equipment out of service that is outdated for us, because the maintenance cost is too high or new equipment is on market that's more accurate, more reliable,'' said Richard Baldwin, an air pollution officer. Although outdated by United States United States, officially United States of America, republic (2005 est. pop. 295,734,000), 3,539,227 sq mi (9,166,598 sq km), North America. The United States is the world's third largest country in population and the fourth largest country in area. standards, the equipment is considered state-of-the-art in developing nations, where there is little money for new environmental equipment. The program's goal is to both improve the quality of air-monitoring data around the world and to increase the amount of information gathered, Baldwin said. The district is donating the equipment through the United Nations World Health Organization's Global Environmental Monitoring System program, which seeks to improve monitoring of air, water, land and biodiversity throughout the developing world. In fact, Ventura County's air district helped pioneer the air-monitoring portion of the program several years ago. When, the World Health Organization called for United States air districts to participate, Ventura County was the first to respond, donating equipment to an air pollution control agency in the Philippines. In September 1994, Baldwin traveled to the Philippines, Indonesia and Thailand to see which country was best able to receive and use donated equipment. In the Philippine capital of Manila, he found a sooty soot·y adj. soot·i·er, soot·i·est 1. Covered with or as if with soot. 2. Blackish or dusky in color. 3. Of or producing soot. haze of carbon monoxide carbon monoxide, chemical compound, CO, a colorless, odorless, tasteless, extremely poisonous gas that is less dense than air under ordinary conditions. It is very slightly soluble in water and burns in air with a characteristic blue flame, producing carbon dioxide; , sulfur dioxide sulfur dioxide, chemical compound, SO2, a colorless gas with a pungent, suffocating odor. It is readily soluble in cold water, sparingly soluble in hot water, and soluble in alcohol, acetic acid, and sulfuric acid. and small particle pollution. It was evident the Philippines had a need for new equipment, and it also had the technical ability to use it and the political will to fund its operation, Baldwin said. So he invited that agency's supervising technician over to America for a month of training, then later shipped two loads of equipment. The total cost was about $10,000, paid for by the World Health Organization and another agency. ``That exercise I went through was the first in the world,'' Baldwin said. ``I was basically the guinea pig guinea pig (gĭn`ē), domesticated form of the cavy, Cavia porcellus, a South American rodent. It is unrelated to the pig; the name may refer to its shrill squeal. to see if we could make that idea work. And we could.'' As a result, the district is now planning the donations to Kenya and Nepal. Each of the countries will receive an ozone analyzer, a nitrogen oxide Noun 1. nitrogen oxide - any of several oxides of nitrogen formed by the action of nitric acid on oxidizable materials; present in car exhausts pollutant - waste matter that contaminates the water or air or soil analyzer, a carbon monoxide analyzer, a small-particle sampler sampler, sample piece of needlework or embroidery, of silk, cotton, or worsted, for the preservation of some pattern or as an example of the ability of a child or a beginner. In museums and private collections there are samplers dating from as early as 1643. and a strip-chart recorder that documents pollution levels on reels of paper. This time the California Air Resources Board California Air Resources Board (CARB) is the "clean air agency" of the state of California in the United States. Established originally in 1967, it is a part of the California Environmental Protection Agency, an organization which reports directly to the California will pay the cost of shipment. Before approving the donations, Ventura County Board of Supervisors The examples and perspective in this article or section may represent an unduly geographically limited view of the subject. Please [ improve this article] or discuss the issue on the talk page. The Board of Supervisors is the body governing counties in the U.S. Chairman John Flynn asked whether it would be possible to arrange similar donations to Mexico. Flynn said he serves on the Good Neighbor Environmental Committee, a presidential committee that could help expedite such a donation. ``If we have equipment that could help them, we should be looking at our neighbors before we look at anyone else.'' |
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