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Communities
for a Better Environment (CBE)
Background: Toxic Release Catalyzes Powerful Monitoring Tool In 1994 the Unocal refinery in Rodeo, California released a dangerous contaminant into the air at high concentrations over a period of 16 days. Many neighboring residents became ill, with symptoms ranging from rashes and nausea to asthma and other chronic health problems. The attorneys representing the community were so frustrated with the lack of reliable data from state and local agencies that they paid an industrial engineer to design a low-tech, low-cost device that could take air samples reliably and with consistent procedure. These air samples were then sent to an EPA-certified lab for analysis. For oil refineries, the main compounds of concern are volatile organic compounds (VOCs) and sulfur compounds. The buckets can also test for heavy metals, particulate matter or dioxin. There are tools under development that may have potential for particulate matter and other chemical emissions. (see separate case study on monitoring tools). Residents living near polluting industrial facilities are often lower income and lack the political or economic power to have their voices heard even at a local level. The young and elderly are especially at risk to inhalation exposure to air contaminants. This combined with ineffective or overwhelmed regulatory agencies means that incidents like the one described above greatly affect the health and otherwise degrades the quality of life for community members. The buckets provide such communities with the tools and expertise to gather their own information, while at the same time addressing broader environmental justice concerns. This information can then be used to mobilize the community, compel agencies to do something about the pollution, or force the facility causing the pollution to change its behavior. Bucket brigade projects have been established in California, New York, Texas, Louisiana, South Africa, and the Philippines. The Project: UNOCAL Gets Stuck in a Bucket Edward Masry was the attorney representing the citizens from Rodeo and Crockett, California against UNOCAL in 1994. In the aftermath of the release of the chemical catacarb, a catalyst used in the refinery process, the neighborhood was coated with sticky goo. Hundreds of residents had already become ill, and they'd been noticing odd smells around the Unocal site. Yet, Masry realized that there was no way to monitor what was coming out of the refinery. So, Masry contracted with an environmental engineering firm to redesign the standard air-sampling device -- known as a Summa canister, a stainless-steel unit that costs about $2,000 -- into a cheap and accurate tool that private citizens could use. The engineers' solution was a standard five-gallon bucket, which brought the cost of the sampling unit down to about $250. Once a "grab sample" of air is taken with the bucket, a heavy-duty Tedlar bag inside can be sealed and sent to a laboratory for analysis. Masry gave 40 buckets to Rodeo and Crockett citizens, encouraging them to keep tabs on future releases from the Unocal refinery. It worked. Two years later, thanks in part to the data collected by refinery neighbors, Unocal settled the citizens' lawsuit, paying a total of $80 million to the 6,000 residents injured by the catacarb release. Groups in the area also won better monitoring and stricter air pollution controls as they expanded their focus to policy issues. Bucket Brigades to the Rescue! Working closely with Masry, Denny Larson of Global Community Monitor, then part of a local group called Communities for a Better Environment (CBE), began promoting the use of the buckets in other communities exposed to refinery and other toxic air emissions. Larson hired a student intern to re-engineer the buckets and to produce a community manual for training fenceline neighbors to build and operate their own air monitoring systems. The manual helped spread the buckets into seven communities in the refinery belt of Contra Costa County. Larson pressed for an even cheaper, simpler version of the bucket, and eventually shaved the cost down to about $75 per unit, and designed a grassroots environmental monitoring program that included protocols for data collection. In 1995 Larson and his group got a private grant to take their buckets on the road. Thus the Bucket Brigade was born. Today, there are about 25 Bucket Brigades active in the United States, from California to Philadelphia and Texas to North Carolina. A very active spin off group in Louisiana is now led by Anne Rolfes. The demand for Bucket Brigades was so great that in 2001, Larson started the Global Community Monitor (GCM) under the Tides Center to offer support to communtieis around the world interested in grassroots monitoring. There are now Bucket Brigades in the Philippines, Thailand, and South Africa.
A Peek Inside the Bucket For the technically curious, here is what is going on inside the bucket. Suspect air is drawn into a Tedlar bag (made of a special plastic that will not contaminate the sample or react with the gases in the sample) inside the bucket. The reusable $15 Tedlar bag is then sealed and sent to a laboratory for analysis. Currently all Bucket Brigades use Columbia Analytical in Simi Valley California for the analysis. Only California and N.Y. state have strict requirements on meeting EPA lab certification and so the number of labs able to conduct the analysis is limited. One complication is that many labs are not eager to do business with community groups who are in conflict with their major customers, industry. They fear their industrial clients may take their business to another lab. Columbia seems to be an exception and the only one recommended by Denny Larson that can also meet low parts per billion detection limits. The lab analysis is the most expensive part of the operation. For between $250-$500 per sample, depending on the number of gases tested for, the contents of the bag are analyzed through a process called GC-MS (Gas Chromatography - Mass Spectrometry), which is a two-step process. First it separates the chemicals of a mixture according to differences in some physical or chemical property (like molecular weight or polarity or charge). Then the individual chemicals are further scrutinized in a machine which assesses the individual atoms that make up the chemical and how much of each type of atom is present in the sample. Once you know that, you have a good idea what the chemical is. (For more nitty gritty on GC-MS, see http://www.shsu.edu/~chemistry/primers/gcms.html) Reflections on the Project: Pros and Cons of the Bucket Many community groups have the experience to work on campaigns, but need some technical tools to make their case more effectively. That?s where tools like the bucket really make a difference. GCM has developed an effective model for community monitoring using many tools such as logbooks, cameras in addition to the centerpiece, the bucket. The concept is similar to Neighborhood Watch, but specifically targeting environmental crimes. For the most part, agencies welcome the supplementary information. Federal law requires industrial sites to estimate their toxic releases each year, and while most state and local environmental agencies have air-monitoring programs, these are often woefully inadequate. Many only collect samples every 6 days and often do not include all of the chemicals released by nearby industry. In addition, the information is often not transparent or easily available to fenceline neighbors. In addition, many accidental releases go unreported, and a lot of air goes untested. "The EPA can't be in everybody's backyard at the same time," says Barbara Bates, an air specialist for the agency's Region 9 laboratory in California. "It's always useful to have other eyes out there." Buckets are the perfect tool to provide this extra surveillance. One potential concern is that collecting data with buckets may require people to put themselves in harms way in order to be at the right place at the right time to catch the incident. However, the people living in the vicinity of the facility are already in an unhealthy position and the bucket allows them to do something about it. It is also important that the bucket data is used in the context of a well-run advocacy campaign. Just collecting data is not enough. There must be a broader strategy to address environmental justice concerns, of which environmental data collection is just a part. Larson?s group, GCM, has developed extensive trainings and new manuals to train groups on how to put the data to work in a campaign. GCM also provides ongoing assistance to groups on a regular basis after they have set up their brigade. Many groups get grants through the Environmental Support Center to pay for the trainings and on-going technical assistance from GCM. Contact information or web links. Handbook on bucket brigades available ? from Global Community Monitor ? see http://www.gcmonitor.org Denny
Larson: dennylarson@earthlink.net
or call 415-643-1870
Anne Rolfes: Founding Director, Louisiana
Bucket Brigade
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Coming Clean ? PO Box 8743 ? Missoula, MT 59807 ? info@come-clean.org |
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A
bucket is deployed near a refinery in Louisiana