Bucket Brigade Ready to Roll

Friday, September 18, 2009 09:36 AM

Prince George, B.C. – “We believe in empowering the local community” says Global Community Monitor Executive Director Denny Larsen.

Larsen is in Prince George for three days to train volunteers with the People’s Action Committee for Healthy Air (PACHA) to collect air samples for analysis.

Basically, the volunteers will use a five gallon bucket that has been fitted with a plastic “lung”. Larsen says the air will be drawn into the plastic lung, the lung will be sealed, and shipped off to a lab where the chemical contents in the sample will be revealed.

Speaking on the Meisner program on CFIS FM this morning, Larsen says companies really would rather “have the light come on than the hammer come down.”

Larsen says communities and corporations have to find the “win-win” he says it may take time and tenacity to reach that mid ground but it can be done. “Studies have focused on fine particulate, and that is deadly stuff. Some companies have been ordered to put in special equipment to reduce that, and that’s good stuff, but the community has been complaining about odours for years, and until someone addresses what the community is talking about it won’t go away. People have a right to know what is in the air they are breathing.”

Larsen says everyone can help and they don’t need a “bucket” to do it. Larsen has log sheets which call on residents to record what the odour smelled like. Those sheets will be correlated with the samples, and detail the chemical breakdown in the air. “Without the samples and log sheets we aren’t gong to be able to connect the dots to their health concerns.”

Larsen says connecting the dots is not that difficult “People may not know they were smelling hydrogen sulphide, but they knew there was something in the air that smelled like rotten eggs. If they also experience a health problem like nausea or vomiting, which is a known acute health effect of exposure to hydrogen sulphide, you’ve really got a direct correlation going on there now. “

Larsen says he has been checking the health and environmental laws in Canada and he is shocked "Frankly you have more of a third world regulation for environmental health. You know, I'm from the States, and we admire Canada for a lot of things, we want a health care system like you have, but trust me, we don't want your environmental health laws."

Larsen will be speaking at a public meeting tonight at the Coast Inn of the North at 7:00.

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Posted on Friday, September 18, 2009 09:36 AM in News by 250 News

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Comments

Posted by: GoodCitizen on September 18 2009 9:52 AM

I wonder how much Larsen is getting paid...

Posted by: CaringSoul on September 18 2009 10:01 AM

I for one is happy for this. It sure will be nice to know just how poluted Prince George's air really is.

Posted by: seamutt on September 18 2009 10:16 AM

These buckets should also be used in houses and other building. People would be surprised where most of the pollution located.

Posted by: lmorge on September 18 2009 11:09 AM

Some days you can go out and cut the air with a knife. Shouldn't be too difficult to collect samples.

Posted by: GoodCitizen on September 18 2009 11:11 AM

Interesting that the consultant from California was criticized for not knowing anything about our air. Where is Larsen from?

Posted by: GoodCitizen on September 18 2009 11:15 AM

Not sure what Larsen is looking at but I've lived and worked in the States. Our environmental laws have teeth and are not affected by who is in power like the US.

And.... it was Boeing in the US that did the study regarding lifespan after retirement and they found their employees had an average lifespan of about 1 year....

And what is Larsen getting paid again?

Posted by: jesssmith on September 18 2009 11:16 AM

In comment to GoodCitizen -- obviously Mr. Larsen's company is going to get some form of compensation for coming up to BC for this and analyzing any samples sent back. Do you suggest his company do it for free --- then people would think it was biased anyways.

Using Mr Larsen's company is a great first step as it is an independent company and study. Having companies like Husky or Canfor take the samples and monitor the air would not be an independent study and would be biased - no matter who paid for it.

Posted by: Jimmi on September 18 2009 11:21 AM

Do they not know that the Ministry of Environment has state of the art continuous air quality monitors that provide data over the internet??

Posted by: Harbinger on September 18 2009 11:59 AM

Maybe they should get 1500 semi trailer truck loads of buckets and just collect all the stinky air and send it down to Californee and let them keep it. And just hope we don't have to pay an export duty on it.

Posted by: Loki on September 18 2009 1:59 PM

jimmi: please provide web address for the rest of us to be in the know.

Posted by: gus on September 18 2009 2:51 PM

"Do they not know that the Ministry of Environment has state of the art continuous air quality monitors that provide data over the internet??"

LOL ... LOL ...LOL ...

State of whose art?

There are monitors on the roof of Plaza 400. There is one for particulates at the PM10 level in the BCR on the roof of the old BCR station. There is a PM10 and PM2.5 monitor (about 2+ years old) on the top of Gladstone school.

There is no single monitor in town that measures any of the carbon based pollutants.

For instance, here is what Husky says they are releasing in total per year. The MoE is monitoring virtually none of those.

http://www.ec.gc.ca/pdb/websol/querysite/release_details_e.cfm?opt_npri_id=0000000405&opt_report_year=2007

I assume we might now find out whether ther might be a concern or there might not be a concern. The MoE has certainly not done anything like this. If they have, they have not told the people in PG that they have.

Posted by: Jimmi on September 18 2009 3:02 PM

http://a100.gov.bc.ca/pub/aqiis/air.summary

Posted by: Jimmi on September 18 2009 3:02 PM

http://a100.gov.bc.ca/pub/aqiis/air.summary

Posted by: gus on September 18 2009 3:13 PM

http://a100.gov.bc.ca/pub/aqiis/air.summary

This is the reporting site.

Notice the monitors are for

1. Carbon Monoxide
2. Oxides of Nitrogen (NO2)
3. Ozone
4. PM10
5. PM2.5
6. Suplhur Dioxide
7. Hydrogen sulphide

I do not see VOCs, for instance

Here is the MoE page on VOC reporting.

http://www.bcairquality.ca/reports/pollutant_VOCs.html

Why do Quesnel and Williams Lake have reports on this but not PG? They do not have refineries. Otherwise we have the same kind of plants here.