Video transcript
Co-design of EPA’s Latrobe Valley air monitoring network - video transcript
Anthony Boxshall, EPA:
This stuff is completely different. It's a completely different way of doing business for us. What we would normally do when we want to design a new air monitoring network
is we get all the information we have and we design it ourselves.
This time we decided to flip it completely and bring the community in the room and co-design the entire thing. The information that people really want to know about their air quality will be embedded in that design.
Community member:
All that has to come out of this process is for there to be a successful monitoring system for Latrobe Valley that will act as the ‘canary in the mine’ to alert us when there is a problem.
Community member:
I want to make sure that my family is going to grow up somewhere that’s safe and healthy.
Community member:
Some sort of safety, some sort of way that the community can look at the information and it makes sense to them.
Anthony Boxshall, EPA:
When you work with a community, genuinely work with a community, a community pays you back with trust.
Community member:
I've certainly got a different view of the EPA than what I had 10 years ago,
and I'd like to thank them.
Community member:
If, two years ago, I could’ve imagined the process
that involved the community and the EPA, and had budget,
it would’ve been this... This... This!
The Latrobe Valley Air Monitoring Co-design project’s aim is to improve air quality information in the region.
The project saw a single, broad air monitoring network created for the Valley. The network may change and adapt with input from the air monitoring co-design panel as pollution sources, population and priorities change.
More than 30 community members worked with EPA air scientists and local experts on the network’s design process. Local councils and the Department of Health and Human Services also supported the project.
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