No. 142: Community Air Monitoring

Greg Rancourt -

In many parts of the country, air and water quality are very good. Hopefully, you and I will never have to worry about whether the air we breathe and water we drink are affecting our families' health – but that's not the reality for everyone in the United States, especially those living near industrial areas. This week, we're discussing a law in Louisiana that has limited the ability of community groups to hold local industries accountable to federal, state, and local air quality laws.

Citizen science is the focus of this week's resource as well, which offers opportunities to contribute to environmental impact data. I'm also sharing a great digital communications role at the Environmental Defense Fund for another way to take your advocacy work to the national stage. Let's hop to it!

~ Greg

What we're reading

A grassroots coalition in Louisiana is suing over a state law that effectively silences community air quality monitoring by requiring EPA-approved equipment. (Grist)

  • The Community Air Monitoring Reliability Act threatens groups with penalties up to $32,500 daily for sharing data from affordable sensors. None of the groups have been fined yet, but they have been forced to remove pollution information from public websites.
    • Official coverage is limited, so community monitoring projects are critical to fill gaps in high-impact areas.
    • One of the reasons this story stood out to me is because Louisiana plays host to Cancer Alley, which is notorious for air and water pollution associated with petrochemical companies. It's the kind of place where you'd want the government to protect its citizens over the interests of industry, but the petrochemical industry in Louisiana has an outsize impact on the local economy – and backed this bill.
  • EPA-approved equipment seems like a reasonable request on face value – after all, you want accurate data, and EPA backing provides some confidence that the equipment is reliable – but that equipment is simply out of reach for these community groups.
    • Grist dug into the costs, which were $791,000 for each monitor plus $200,000 in annual maintenance and operations. Ideally, you'd have equipment at multiple locations. It's just not viable.
    • The part that makes this frustrating is that the groups can actually afford to monitor their communities' air quality. They are doing so today at a cost of hundreds of dollars per monitor. The law simply prevents them from publicizing the data.
  • That's where this lawsuit comes in: it claims that CAMRA violates free speech by targeting advocacy efforts specifically – restrictions only apply when monitoring aims to document potential regulatory violations. But that's the whole point of monitoring, isn't it? Accountability.
    • Louisiana isn't the only state pursuing similar restrictions. Kentucky lets groups publish their data, but it can't be used in rule-making, and West Virginia tried to pass a bill that died in the state Senate.
  • I've been trying to think of ways to stay compliant with the law while retaining the healthy air and water outcomes for which these groups are advocating. I keep running up against the issue of intent: you can't monitor with the intention of documenting violations.
    • Maybe instead of being producers of the data, they could be consumers? The producer doesn't necessarily need to have the same intent – it could be to make money from offering air quality data to community groups. That gets the groups out of the monitoring business, at least directly.
    • That said, a simpler solution exists: the plaintiffs win this case. Keep your fingers crossed.
  • On a side note, if this idea of using crowdsourced data to improve social impact outcomes piques your interest, definitely take a look at the Resource of the Week below.

Job of the week

This week's job is the perfect mix of marketing and advocacy at a time when making our voices heard is exceedingly important: the Environmental Defense Fund is hiring a Senior Digital Comms Specialist to drive digital campaigns in support of their Political Affairs communications team.

The role is based out of Washington, DC – ground zero for just about any kind of advocacy work you can think of – and you'd be focused on video content across a variety of social media platforms. This is a great opportunity to use your voice and creativity to drive environmental impact on a national scale.

Community roundup

  • Circ is opening a $500 million facility in France that will become the first industrial-scale plant dedicated to recycling polycotton, the combination of polyester and cotton that has become a favorite of the fashion industry. (Forbes)
    • It has been too difficult in the past to separate polyester and cotton so each can be reused. Circ and others have developed processes showing it's possible, but this is the first time it will be done at scale. Per Forbes, 10% of global emissions come from the fashion industry, so recycling is a big deal.
  • Researchers are looking for microorganisms called extremophiles because they survive in unusual places and could lead to breakthrough technologies. (NPR)
    • They recently found one that is very efficient at consuming carbon dioxide and could improve carbon capture. Others could hold promise for cleaning up hazardous materials or recycling heavy metals.
  • Much of our technology relies on rechargeable batteries that lose capacity over time. Using artificial intelligence, scientists identified a salt that greatly extends the life of batteries: typical EV batteries can be charged and discharged 2,000 times, but they managed to retain 96% capacity after 12,000 cycles. (Scientific American)
    • As with any research of this kind, the question is commercialization. On that front, a Chinese battery maker is partnering with Fudan University to bring the technology to market. I'm reminded once again of how China is on the cutting edge of renewable energy technology, including storage.
  • Insurance and reinsurance companies have focused on "primary perils" in the past, meaning big disaster events like hurricanes and earthquakes, and have built extensive risk models and cost analyses to plan their responses. They are now starting to shift focus due to the increasing number of small- to mid-size weather events like flooding and hail damage for which they may not be financially prepared. (Inside Climate News)
  • Meta has inked a nuclear power deal with Constellation Energy, another in a long line of tech company partnerships as their electricity needs grow to support artificial intelligence and data centers more generally. (Reuters)
  • PurposeEnergy has opened a new plant in St. Albans, VT that converts organic waste into clean water and electricity. Ben & Jerry's is a prominent client – they have a dedicated pipeline that delivers organic waste to the plant. (Electrek)

Civic corner

  • The Mayor of Tulsa, OK has announced a $105 million reparations package to address the disparities resulting from the Tulsa Race Massacre in 1921. The associated Greenwood Trust will invest in homeownership and housing assistance, cultural preservation, and land acquisition and development, small business grants, and scholarships. (NYT)
  • The Trump administration is removing federal protections for the National Petroleum Reserve-Alaska so oil and gas drilling can proceed. This is the largest single area of public land in the United States, and Congress first authorized commercial use back in 1976. (NYT)
    • More petroleum means more greenhouse gas emissions, and drilling puts conservation efforts at risk. Some Indigenous groups see this as an economic opportunity, however.
  • The Secretary of Defense has ordered the Secretary of the Navy to remove Harvey Milk's name from a Navy vessel and evaluate other vessels for renaming, including those named after Harriet Tubman, Dolores Huerta, and Thurgood Marshall. (NPR)
    • This class of ships is named after John Lewis, the civil rights figure and Representative from Georgia who passed away in 2020. The ships in this class are named after prominent civil rights leaders and women.
    • I see echoes of this decision in the removal of Confederate monuments: the victor gets to rewrite the history books.
  • More than $14 billions of clean energy projects have been canceled or delayed so far this year. Companies have pointed to the economic environment and uncertainty over tax breaks as reasons to reduce investment. (Inside Climate News)
  • Hawaii has become the first state to institute a "green fee" that charges tourists to address environmental impact and disaster response. The increase to an individual tourist is small – about $3 for a $400/night room – but is estimated to bring in $100 million in revenue to the state. (Grist)

Hot job opportunities

Resource of the week

Here's a unique way to give back this week: take a look at the citizen science opportunities at SciStarter. I'd put SciStarter in the crowdsourcing bucket, and the more I reflected on the topic this week, the more I realized we see these volunteer efforts everywhere: Wikipedia for crowdsourced encyclopedia content, GitHub for open-source software, Waze for realtime traffic conditions, and a lot more – people freely offering their time to contribute to our collective success. Through that lens, it kind of feels like social impact, doesn't it?

Back to SciStarter then: many scientific efforts rely on data collection to study the environment, and you can contribute to that body of data through their website. I found examples where people are fishing for invasive species, monitoring the coastlines for beached birds, and identifying monarch breeding hotspots to help scientists learn about ecosystems so they can be preserved and protected.

There were nearly 700 projects to choose from – some of which are available online – so you can find one that piques your interest near you. If you remember our discussion of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals, you'll be happy to know you can filter on projects aligned to your SDG focus area.

Test your knowledge

Recently, I've seen more people letting their yards get overgrown or replacing sod with native plants in the name of sustainability. Last week, I quizzed you about this trend.

You can find a few terms with similar objectives, but they come with their own subtleties: native landscaping involves using local plants suited to the climate, zeroscaping means a yard that is primarily dirt, gravel, or rocks with few plants, and xeriscaping is similar to zeroscaping but uses additional drought-tolerant plants more intentionally. I quite like the idea of a yard that doesn't need watering – if you could make it beautiful, that's the best of both worlds.

Protests are just as relevant to social change than ever, so in the spirit of recent news, let's dig into the origins of the pride movement:

What event in 1969 is credited with sparking the pride movement?

Email me your guess, and I'll send one lucky winner a couple of One Work stickers!

I am heading to San Francisco in a few weeks. Got any recommendations, especially around social impact? Send them my way – I'm looking forward to getting lost in the parks.