Last Updated:
Wednesday, September 9, 2009 | 10:10 PM PT
Original story can be found here.
People in Prince George, B.C., plan to use buckets to do battle with
the possibly harmful gases that create a bad smell in the city's air.
A citizens' group called the People's Action Committee for Healthy
Air [PACHA] has sought the help of an international environmental
organization that helps gather air samples in five-gallon buckets and
then has the samples chemically analyzed.
"People [have] been trying to clean up the air for 40 or 50 years.
We haven't had a lot of results. It still stinks," PACHA president Dave
Fuller told CBC News.
PACHA volunteers will be trained by Global Community Monitor to use
the buckets to capture air samples on days when air quality appears —
or smells — the worst. The samples will be tested in a California lab.
"I'm afraid ... to think what we're going to find," Fuller said. "We
know it could be toxic. We know people are not feeling good when this
stuff is in the air. We want to find out why."
"When it's smelly, people feel sick, they feel nauseated," Fuller said.
The "bucket brigade" — as Global Community Monitor calls the local
groups it trains — hopes those test results will force industries and
the government to clean up Prince George's air.
"We hear constantly of people leaving Prince George because 'it stinks,'" Fuller said.
"We want to do odor testing to find out who is responsible for these odors and what is really in them."
PACHA
members will be trained by Sept. 19 to build their own buckets for
sample gathering, which is expected to take place over a period of
about six months, Fuller said.
Global Community Monitor is an international non-profit organization
that has worked with communities in 20 countries, including Canada,
according to its website.
An Erin Brockovich connection
The
bucket brigades were started in 1995 by attorney Edward Masry, the
lawyer who hired assistant Erin Brockovich, later the subject of a hit
Hollywood movie.
Masry and Brokovich had clients who were being exposed to toxic
fumes from a petroleum plant, so he hired an environmental engineer to
design a low-cost device — the "bucket" — which the community could use
to monitor their exposure for themselves.
Suspect air is drawn into a plastic bag inside the bucket. The bag
is then sealed and sent to a laboratory for analysis which, at about
$500 per sample, is the most expensive part of the operation.
The contents of the bag are passed through a device called a gas
chromatograph mass spectrometer, which can identify about 100 different
toxic gases.
"Everyone is concerned about small particulates and know about the
serious diseases they cause in lungs, hearts and brains," said
pediatrician Dr. Marie Hay, who is with another Prince George community
organization, the Millar Addition Citizens' Coalition.
"Families of the Miller Addition [neighbourhood] are suffering. They
cannot wait for years to resolve the untenable situation of foul air,"
Hay said.
