All posts by Xanham

Articles and Essays

How Galway’s Trash is Reminsicent of Portland’s Air

I want to share a story about pollution, and the excuses that are made to pretend that ignoring its existence will solve the problem.

I moved to Galway, Ireland, for a spell when I was 25. (If I had my druthers, I would never have left! Ah, immigration!) I arrived on an amazing September day, walking through the center city, pondering how and where I was going to work, where I would live, and what music I would see first. My meanderings took me from Shop Street, to High Street, to Quay Street, the fresh Galway Bay air surrounding me, billowing clouds in the sky, a lighthearted stride and a new beginning.

A walkway led along a tributary to Lough Corrib, which I was admiring, when I came across a fairly thick dam of rubbish – all sorts of plastic trash, a few sneakers, some chunky items I cannot recall – and my image of this beautiful and clean city came crashing down: This could not be the result of one, or even solely a few- days of filth tossed into a river, carried downstream and plugged by a dam that on wetter days would see the water carried over its top. Why was this there?! It’s a city sustained by tourism – doesn’t anyone care to keep up its image, at least?

I decided that I was going to figure out what to do about it.

I walked to the city’s administrative buildings, and spoke with the councilor for the local environment (my terms might be wrong, here, but the man was in charge of keeping the city clean.) I described what I had seen, and he said, “Sure, it’s not usually a problem! September has seen little rain, and most of the year the water carries all that rubbish into the Bay and out to sea!” We then had a discussion about how that wasn’t truly the solution to Galway’s rubbish issues, but I divined that there really wasn’t anyone employed to clean the Lough, and that was that.

So I went to the University College Galway (now NUI) to see if I could borrow a fishing net with a long handle to scoop the stuff out. The professor I spoke with was somewhat skeptical of my endeavors, but allowed me to borrow the net, as long as I returned it by the end of the day. I took the net, bought some gloves and ten large black plastic bags, returned to the scene and got to work.

I filled one, two, three, four black plastic bags, receiving stares and furtive quizzical looks all the while. When I was up to my eighth bag, a man, the one person who had briefly struck up conversation during my junk-fishing bonanza, had purchased more bags and brought them to me.  I think I filled about twelve bags in all, and I actually began to find interesting the discarded crap in the nets.

I talked a construction crew into allowing me to sling the bags into  their skips, returned the nets, and felt a little better that, once the rain came, everything that would have been washed out to sea was diverted into landfill. (Of course, I then discovered that Galway, the fastest growing city in western Europe, only had a primary treatment plant. The swans were bathing in raw sewage! Oi.)

So where am I going with this? Today, as with many days this summer, quite a few this autumn and several already this winter, Cully’s air has been fouled with the stench of asphalt, mainly due to  atmospheric inversion.  On the days when the ground temperature is warmer than the air, it is less noticeable, so there is a better chance that the VOCs and other airborne toxics remain unnoticeable. There is no problem, right? The pollution heads skyward, dissipates, and is essentially non-existent – or at least harder to pinpoint.

The same argument prevails, that, given the right conditions, pollution goes away. It’s not in our back yard, or in anyone’s back yard. It’s for the Earth to absorb or disperse. Portland is an unwilling recipient of toxics from China, Boardman, and other distant locations, all due to atmospheric conditions. All pollution ends up somewhere. In a twisted way, our toxic inversions are positive events as they alert people that there are truly problems with our air quality legislation – they can call, complain, get active in issues that affect everyone. People need clean air to survive. We can’t let industry or government continue to hide behind the guise of dissipation or loss of jobs. Call DEQ when you smell anything! It’s up to us.

Articles and Essays

DEQ Proactively Requests Air Quality Emissions & Production Data from 1,298 Facilities in Oregon

Hopefully everyone complies! Here is the press release from Oregon DEQ, this morning:

Data from nearly 1,300 industrial facilities will strengthen air permitting program and inform Cleaner Air Oregon rulemaking
Portland, OR—The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality has sent letters to industrial facilities with DEQ air permits and registrations requesting reports on their usage of substances from a list of 633 chemicals.

http://www.deq.state.or.us/aq/cao/docs/EI_Letter.p… The requested data will be used by state regulators and health experts to develop an effective health risk-based permitting program as part of Governor Brown’s Cleaner Air Oregon initiative.

Using this information, the state will develop a more comprehensive inventory of air toxics emissions. The inventory will allow DEQ and the Oregon Health Authority to develop and implement a regulatory program that appropriately prioritizes efforts to control emissions to reduce potential risks to human health. The data will also provide the foundation for recommendations to the Oregon Environmental Quality Commission for which facilities should be subject to reporting, permitting, or other regulatory requirements.

The list of chemicals that must be reported is based on a combination of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s list of Hazardous Air Pollutants, as well lists from the Washington Department of Ecology and California Air Resources Board. With this information, DEQ will be able to determine the types of facilities using these chemicals, as well as the quantities typically used on-site. The chemicals reported will be compared with current scientific data to identify which ones pose health concerns and need to be brought into the new regulations.

The letters have been sent to 1,298 facilities in Oregon. DEQ has created a website to assist facilities in gathering and reporting new data, http://www.deq.state.or.us/aq/cao.htm DEQ will propose draft air toxics rules to the Environmental Quality Commission in December of 2017 following an extensive public engagement process, including an analysis of the emissions data as well as the fiscal and economic effects of any proposed rules.

For more information visit:
DEQ’s Air Toxics Emissions Inventory webpage, http://www.deq.state.or.us/aq/cao.htm

To receive information about this program as it develops, you may sign up for text or email updates at the Cleaner Air Oregon website, http://cleanerair.oregon.gov/

Contact: Jennifer Flynt, Public Affairs Specialist, 503-730-5924, flynt.jennifer@deq.state.or.us

 

Minutes and Meeting Notes

CAAT and Oregon Environmental Council Bring Citizen Science Diesel Study to Cully

On Tuesday, 6 December, Oregon Environmental Council and CAAT will present a diesel-focused outreach in both Spanish and English to Cully residents.

OEC will discuss the effects of diesel on human health and ways in which we are exposed to its particulates, then elaborate on the neighborhood diesel study in which we will participate. Building upon the pilot program in the Lents neighborhood, we will use black carbon monitoring and technology to upload a map which documents our exposure.

This will be a fun and informative meeting! Childcare, food and translation are available. It’s not imperative, but please contact xanham@cullycleanair.org to RSVP for childcare, or for more questions.

img_0419
CAAT OEC espanol
img_0418
CAAT OEC flier ingles
Articles and Essays

Cully’s Spanish-speaking residents call for more information on local air toxics

Residents of the northeast Portland neighborhood of Cully gathered this week to share concerns about air pollution from local factories and passing diesel trucks.

“If we know what’s happening here we can share that information with other people who don’t know,” said Araceli Becerril. “What can we do? What should we know about how to protect ourselves.”

Becerril volunteers with a local nonprofit that advocated for clean water. So when she got an email announcing Wednesday night’s meeting about air toxins, she came to find out what what going on. She hadn’t heard about problems with the air.

And she wasn’t the only one. Two women hired for the evening to watch children while neighbors learned about air toxins, joined in.

“It’s the first time I’m hearing about this, and I’m worried,” Lleny Ku said.

Organizer Alma Velázquez, a volunteer with Cully Air Action Team (link is external), said she grew up in Guadalajara and thought you could tell if the air was polluted by the color of the air.  So when she learned about possibly unsafe levels of arsenic and cadmium near glass companies in other parts of Portland, she began organizing neighbors for a formal study on the air in their neighborhood.

As neighboring states tighten regulations on dirty emissions, Oregon has become a dumping ground for older model semi trucks. That’s a big problem for people in Cully, where a major transport route borders the neighborhood to the North. Glass and asphalt companies operate nearby, along streams and ponds marked with signs warning of polluted water.

Mirexa Acosta said she hadn’t known about the companies, but she’s not surprised. Sometimes when she walks outside, the air smells like chemicals that remind her of pesticide spray.

“We’re not informed about anything,” she said. She’d like to know how to complain.

Nina DeConcini, a regional administrator at the state’s Department of Environmental Quality (link is external), told Acosta and the other attendees that the agency wanted to hear from them, and would respond to concerns with inspections and studies. The state, for example, recently installed two air monitors in the neighborhood.  They expect results will be ready this fall.

airquality_20160921-10
Lleny Ku (left) and Mirexa Acosta were startled to find out about potential problems with the air quality in Cully.

DeConcini encouraged people to call the agency’s tipline with any concerns: 888-997-7888

Matt Hoffman, a program specialist with Multnomah County Environmental Health, said the county has little control over factory emissions, but it’s looking at how to limit traffic from old diesel trucks that use county roads.

“One of the most powerful tools we have is the personal stories from people on the ground,” he said. “You talk about your experiences, your neighborhood, and your family. That can be powerful.”

https://multco.us/global/news/spanish-speaking-residents-call-more-information-air-toxins-cully-neighborhood

Minutes and Meeting Notes

Cleaner Air Oregon Public Forum & Rally, 5 Oct

xan1CAAT wants you to come to the Cleaner Air Oregon Public Forum on Wednesday, October 5th!

There will be a rally at 5:00pm, before the Forum officially starts at 6:00pm. The forum is schedule to end at 8:30pm.

Cleaner Air Oregon wants to hear from people across the state to pass on their views and thoughts to the CAO Regulatory Advisory Committee. This is a VERY IMPORTANT opportunity for Cully to share what is on their mind regarding the upcoming revamping of our air quality legislation.

The forum with include presentations by DEQ and OHA staff, and there will be opportunity to give this input after these presentations.

There will be childcare and interpretation if DEQ has advance notice that both are needed. Respond if you have these needs to CleanerAir.Oregon.gov/forum-rsvp

If you can’t attend, there will be an online version of the forums available via CleanerAir.Oregon.gov from Sep 13 – Oct 5.

Minutes and Meeting Notes, Pollutants

Monday Air Quality Update

The Cully Air Action Team has been extremely busy and involved in air quality issues over the past few months. This is the first weekly posting spree, split into several topic-based posts, serving to bring readers up to speed on CAAT’s activism and issues that exist with air quality in Cully, in addition to listing important upcoming meetings and events that people should attend. We all breathe air from the same airshed!

July saw the establishment of a weekly, 30-minute call-in conversation with representatives of the Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), Oregon Health Authority (OHA), Multnomah County, to discuss the many air quality issues that affect us, in Cully: Heavy industry with little or no air filtration; several high-use transportation corridors; the Port of Portland; Forest Service moss results;  Air Quality informational meetings; specific polluters I will mention, below.

The United States Forest Service (USFS) moss samples indicated that Cully is the most polluted neighborhood in all of Portland. From this data, DEQ decided to establish two air monitors in Cully. One air monitor was located on 1 Sep at Parkrose Deliverance Tabernacle on NE 57th & Portland Highway, while the second is at a BES Pumping Station on about NE 62nd, north of Columbia Highway, placed 19 Sep. Both air monitors are functioning, with data collected daily by DEQ. To complement these monitors, a meteorological data station has been mounted atop Living Cully Plaza. On 1 Oct, DEQ will begin to analyze 30 days’ worth of data from the first monitor, in addition to corresponding meteorological data, and we are told to expect results sometime mid-Oct. These results will indicate what has been in the air for 30 days, but unfortunately will not pinpoint the source of the heavy metals. If the results show that there is a level of heavy metals that exceeds state health benchmarks, OHA will take some form of action to alert public.

As to why DEQ is spending so much time, effort and outreach on Cully:

  1. Cully is a historically underserved community, the largest and most diverse neighborhood in Portland. There are issues of environmental justice and unheard voices that need to be immediately addressed.
  2. From the Moss Samples we can see that Cully is off the chartsregarding aluminum, chromium and cobalt (highest in Portland for all three), iron; very high in arsenic, lead, copper, zinc, and molybdenum. http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/pnw_gtr938.pdf

This is a fantastic document, listing all the moss sample sites throughout the city, and the corresponding metals found in each sample. Although I knew Cully was bad, I hadn’t considered all the metals measured in the samples, as Bullseye and Uruboros were gathering attention for Chromium, Cobalt, and Arsenic. Thus, when I looked at the sample from two blocks away, I was astounded to see the aluminium measured the worst in the city. Everyone should look at their closest moss samples to see what was collected. It is difficult to envision air pollution amidst blue skies and gorgeous days.