Air Quality

The Bucket Brigade empowers community members to monitor the air quality in their own community. The “Bucket” was first used in the Contra Costa County case against UNOCAL oil refinery, with famous environmental lawyer, Erin Brockovich and attorney Ed Masry. It’s a low cost canister designed by an environmental engineer to take air samples, where standard monitoring fails. Ed Masry worked closely with Denny Larson who promoted the use of this citizen science tool through a community air sampling program, which became known as the “Bucket Brigade.” Denny also formed the Global Community Monitor to train people to launch their own Bucket Brigades across America and throughout the world. These groups give communities living near refineries, chemical plants or other toxic emitting sources, such as fracking sites, the ability to monitor pollution with hard evidence. As noted in C&C program 2, the federal EPA has stated that Bucket Brigade techniques can play a useful role where government sensors are lacking. Bucket Brigades have proven to be effective in forcing some polluters to be accountable for their emissions. Be sure to check out their iWitness Pollution Map app to report your observations of pollution near you.

http://www.labucketbrigade.org/