NIGNC - Bucket Brigade

**Building Healthy Communities Stopping Toxic Pollution * Making Industry on Neville Island a 'Good Neighbor'***
	What is a Bucket Brigade? View our last Bucket Report, Results, or Summary from 2002. Do you want to know how to find out what you are breathing and if there is a link between pollution and health problems? The "Bucket Brigade" is a simple, but effective, tool that dozens of communities are using across the world to find out for themselves what chemicals are in the air. Armed with their own data and information about the health effects of chemicals, these communities are winning impressive reductions of pollution, safety improvements and increasing enforcement of environmental laws.
The "Bucket Brigade" is named for an easy-to-use air sampling device by which average residents can take air samples in their neighborhoods. Denny Larson, who formed Global Community Monitor and Refinery Reform Campaign in 2001, helped to develop the buckets and has worked with many communities, including the Neville Island Good Neighbor Committee, to establish successful air testing programs. The "Bucket" was developed in Northern California in 1995 by an environmental engineering firm in order to simplify and reduce the costs of testing toxic gases in the air. It consists of a regular 5-gallon bucket with two valves attached to the lid. Using a small vacuum, the bucket traps a few liters of air in a Teflon-type bag, which is sent to a lab for analysis. The Environmental Protection Agency approved this method because it is very similar to equipment used by their agency. The Good Neighbor Committee has operated a Bucket Brigade in the Neville Island area since 2001, detecting dozens of chemicals on a regular basis, several of which can cause cancer, birth defects, developmental disorders, and respiratory problems. When the Bucket Brigade first started around Neville Island, the Allegheny County Health Department (ACHD) monitored only one of the compounds detected by the Bucket Brigade. Because of our air sampling results, ACHD now monitors seven additional compounds of concern. While it's clearly the responsibility of environmental agencies to protect public health, sometimes residents need to take matters into their own hands!
Back to Current Campaigns Neville Island Good Neighbor Committee A Project of Clean Water Action 100 Fifth Avenue, #1108 Pittsburgh, PA 15222 412-765-3053 * webmaster@pabucketbrigade.org

What is a Bucket Brigade?

While it's clearly the responsibility of environmental agencies to protect public health, sometimes residents need to take matters into their own hands!