by Justin Kushik and Kielly Dunn
Imagine: you step outside to pick up your morning newspaper and the headline reads, “Authorities Claim Local Refinery Complies with Environmental Standards.” As you glance toward the plumes of smoke billowing from the refinery’s stacks, you scratch your head and wonder about the accuracy of the government’s finding. You know that the smell can be very strong at times, that the sun often sets through an orange haze, and that many of your neighbors suffer from respiratory disease. You wonder if there is a way to learn more about the air you are breathing and persuade the government to give it some attention.
The costs of environmental monitoring have traditionally meant that ordinary citizens must rely on government or industry. In many countries, neither government nor industry offers consistent or transparent programs for monitoring pollution and its effects. Through the efforts of public interest and people’s organizations worldwide, a growing body of knowledge is evolving about low-cost technologies and research methods that allow communities to monitor pollution themselves.
In 1995, Edward Masry, an attorney in Northern California, became frustrated that his clients were breathing toxic air on a daily basis while authorities denied the existence of a problem. To counter the denials, Masry hired a team of environmental engineers to create an inexpensive and simple means of accurately monitoring air pollution. The engineers developed a five-gallon bucket containing a three-liter Tedlar bag and a manual vacuum that resembles a bike pump to inflate the bag. Once inflated with a sample of air, the bag is sealed and sent to a lab for analysis. The bucket device is easy to use and produces reliable results.
Denny Larson, who helped develop the device, has worked to promote this new technology in several communities in the United States and elsewhere. He founded Global Community Monitor, a non-profit organization dedicated to helping people in communities affected by air pollution by equipping them with the tools and knowledge necessary to fight the problem.
Affordable to people in the global North, this simple technology is still beyond reach for communities in industrializing countries due to the high cost of analyses – about $500. Nevertheless, resourceful community groups have developed innovative techniques to make bucket technologies even more affordable by coupling this testing with simple observation.
In Southeastern India, a new partnership in the highly polluted SIPCOT industrial area of Cuddalore district has helped people in six villages get to the root of the serious health problems that have long plagued them. Villagers have teamed up with the Other Media, consumer group FEDCOT and Global Community Monitor (GCM) to begin gathering evidence and building a case to force companies to comply with pollution laws.
In March 2004, Larson visited Cuddalore to share skills on bucket sampling with the SIPCOT Area Community Environmental Monitors (SACEM). The monitors, all from villages in and around SIPCOT, had already begun recording instances of air and water pollution and occupational injury and death through simple monitoring sheets.
To stretch its small budget, SACEM decided to make do with five samples paid for with funds raised by GCM. Simultaneously in March, SACEM began a study of chemical odor incidents. Monitors used simple data sheets to note the details of odors they encountered as they went about their lives. Monitors noted the kind of smell, immediate symptoms, possible source, wind direction, and date and time of day. The exercise relied on the human nose, and cost nothing beyond the photocopying of the data sheets. In August 2004, the report was released. SACEM had recorded 36 distinct chemical odors and 30 related health symptoms in the 283 chemical odor incidents documented in a 14-week period.
The study helped quantify villagers’ long-standing complaints about the frequency and intensity of chemical odors, and word of the study apparently prompted the local environmental regulatory agency to begin its own program of monitoring SIPCOT air. The five samples that SACEM took were snapshots of routine chemical odor incidents documented by the monitors. The results revealed the presence of 22 toxic gases in SIPCOT’s air, of which 13 are known to be raw materials used in SIPCOT industries.
A grant from Global Greengrants Fund supported organizing and training of participants in this program and publication of its results. Outreach to the communities about the results and health implications has prompted people in these caste- and class-ridden villages to organize a clear response. Residents have demanded long-term environmental monitoring and regular publication of results; comprehensive health monitoring and medical treatment for affected communities; an aggressive program to curb toxic emissions from existing factories; and a ban on setting up or expanding any polluting industries in SIPCOT.