Residents in heavily polluted SLO County areas got free air purifiers. Here’s how it happened
No matter how many times she dusts, sweeps or mops, Jamie Turner said her house gets dusty again pretty quickly.
It’s just a factor of where she lives, Turner noted. Just down the street from her home on 13th Street in Oceano, you can see the tips of some of the dunes within Oceano Dunes State Vehicular Recreation Area.
“Our air quality is horrible,” she said. “I don’t want to say it’s because of the dunes because I’m for the dunes being open and having access and everything, but it’s just where we live. It doesn’t matter where you go in this area, there’s sand everywhere.”
And when wildfire smoke has inundated the area in years past, the air quality turns from bad to worse, Turner added. She and her daughter both struggle with asthma and bad allergies, she said.
So, after she saw on Facebook that the San Luis Obispo County Air Pollution Control District was handing out high-efficiency particulate air purifiers, she jumped at the opportunity. And on Saturday, Turner secured her free air purifier and an extra filter to help clean the air within her home.
The APCD had about 575 air purifiers available to low-income residents living in Oceano or on the Nipomo Mesa — two areas of San Luis Obispo County that frequently experience the worst air quality locally due to dust blowing inland from the Oceano Dunes.
By 9:30 a.m., the APCD had handed out roughly 100. A steady trickle of residents came to the Oceano Community Services District office building on Front Street to take home the devices.
“It’s something I wouldn’t have put on a priority list, even though I sit and suffer,” Oceano resident Loni Silkwood said.
Silkwood picked up a free air purifier in hopes it’ll help clear the air inside her home and ease her chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) symptoms, especially on windy, dusty days.
The air purifiers handed out by the APCD sell for about $150, and they can reduce particulate matter within a well-sealed room by more than 90%, according to the agency. Residents who wished to pick one up for free on Saturday had to show proof that they lived in Oceano or within certain areas of the Nipomo Mesa, and that they were considered low income.
The free handouts are part of a new Clean Air Rooms Pilot Program by the APCD that aims to protect residents from damaging fine, smoke and dust particulate matter pollution. The program was allocated $100,000 during an APCD meeting on Jan. 26.
Arroyo Grande City Council Member Jimmy Paulding helped champion the program and was there Saturday, helping the APCD staff hand out the air purifiers.
Paulding said he was glad to see a steady stream of people coming to the services district office to pick up the purifiers, noting that he hopes there will be “no more boxes left at the end of the day.” He also said that he hopes the program can be expanded to more areas throughout the county.
“The role of government is to help people, first and foremost — and beyond that, to protect the health, safety and welfare of the people,” Paulding said at the handout event. “We clearly have this air-quality problem. And instead of bickering about what to do about it, let’s help people that are impacted by it.”
Any residents unable to pick up their free air purifier on Saturday can go to the Oceano Community Services District office building at 1655 Front St. at 4:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 3. The purifiers are available on a first-come-first-served basis.
This story was originally published May 1, 2022 at 5:00 AM.
