Matters of life and breath

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Ah, breathe in the air. Or on second thought, don’t. Clean Water Fund and the Community Labor Refinery Tracking Committee recently delivered some alarming news about air-pollution levels in the area.

The two groups, along with residents, measure air quality through the use of "bucket brigades," which originated a year ago this month in South and Southwest Philly.

The latest findings were revealed at a Jan. 27 community forum at the Mercy Wellness Center in Southwest. One test was taken immediately after a Jan. 18 fire at the Sunoco Philadelphia Refinery.

Christine Knapp, program organizer for Clean Water Fund, and Joanne Rossi, president of the CLRTC, also took the opportunity to announce the citywide kickoff of the bucket brigade.

Nearly 20 residents from South and Southwest Philly attended the forum, along with representatives from neighborhood civic associations.

Working with the CLRTC, Clean Water Fund launched the bucket brigade last year in the neighborhoods surrounding the oil refinery.

The goal was to create a trained group of volunteers who could take air-quality samples that would then be sent to a laboratory in California for analysis.

"Anybody can really join that has a nose. We call them sniffers. All they are required to do is call somebody when they smell something that is not right," Knapp said.

Civic-minded residents simply contact bucket-brigade members who will come out and collect an air sample.

Members are equipped with Environmental Protection Agency-approved homemade air monitors constructed from specially modified plastic buckets. The devices are fitted with air-intake valves and an air sample bag. Each unit costs $75 to $100, Knapp said. An EPA grant covered the cost of equipment and test results.

According to Knapp, the lab provides its findings in raw data form. To help decode the scientific lingo and assess potential health risks, Clean Water Fund enlisted the expertise of two University of Pennsylvania professors who specialize in environmental studies.


As copies of the four test results and possible health risks were handed out at last month’s meeting, one attendee looked at the document and gasped, "Oh my God."

All seven compounds that surfaced in the samples far exceeded EPA standards. In most cases, the levels soared through the roof.

Procured under varying weather conditions, three of the samples were taken on the Passyunk Avenue Bridge, while the other was collected on 61st Street. In two of the four samples, acetone was the leading compound, detected at levels of 16 and 63, respectively. The EPA standard is 3.7. According to Clean Water Fund research, acetone’s possible health risks include effects on the cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, kidney, neurological and respiratory systems and skin toxicants.

Another compound, toluene, also registered big. In the same two samples, the level of toluene detected was 28 and 31, respectively. The EPA standard is 4.2. This compound is a known developmental toxicant that puts people at risk for cardiovascular, gastrointestinal, skin, kidney, reproductive, respiratory and neurological effects, according to Clean Water Fund.

The only suspected carcinogen detected was Methyl tertiary-Butyl Ether, otherwise known as MTBE.

Found in gasoline, MTBE is an additive designed to reduce the production of smog by increasing the burning efficiency of fuel. While EPA literature describes MTBE as a "potential" human carcinogen, studies have yet to be completed to determine if the compound causes cancer in humans.

Originally, Clean Water Fund and the CLRTC had only planned to collect three samples, Knapp said, but that changed on Jan. 18 with a fire at the Sunoco Refinery. When news of the fire broke, Rossi and CLRTC vice president Al Caporali rushed out and collected an air sample. Interestingly, that sample proved to have the least troubling results, with only two compounds surfacing. Toluene topped at 26, while another compound, 2-Butanone, registered 9.8, well above the EPA standard of 1.0.

Rossi believes the 72-hour lag time in getting the sample to the lab due to the Martin Luther King holiday affected its result. "You need to get it there within 24 hours or it loses its potency. If it sits too long, it loses its content and everything subsides," Rossi explained.

The bucket-brigade program is currently in phase one, according to Knapp. Armed with the first set of test results, the residents will now keep on sampling. The organization will take six more samples in the refinery neighborhoods and another 10 throughout the city of Philadelphia, Knapp noted.

"We’re only very early on in our fight. We have detected a lot of chemicals and that a lot of them were above EPA health standards," She said. "As far as actually winning a victory, I can’t say we’ve done that yet."

The sample findings are merely a barometer of what is healthy or unhealthy — the parties responsible for releasing the chemicals are not breaking any law, Knapp noted.

At this time, it has yet to be determined which, if any, of the dangerous compounds in the first four samples can be directly linked to Sunoco Philadelphia Refinery or any other nearby industry.

Contacted for comment, Sunoco spokesperson John McCann said the company had not yet had the opportunity to review the committee’s most recent reports.

Once the culprit polluters are identified, Clean Water Fund and CLRTC have some definitive goals. The groups are hopeful legislators will set new regulatory city and state air-quality standards to protect the health of the community.

"Currently we don’t have air-quality standards in Pennsylvania," Rossi said.

In addition, the organizations would like to see more monitoring by Air Management Services, a division of the city’s Department of Health, and expanded testing for more chemicals. Rossi also noted a desire for lower emissions from the Sunoco plant and other industrial businesses. The committee president is confident the goals are attainable.

"All good things come in time. It may take some time, but in time [the goals] will come about," she said.

Bucket brigades abound across the country. Some have been influential enough to win impressive reductions in pollution levels, safety improvements and better enforcement of environmental laws.

One such brigade in Norco, La., used samples from their buckets to force Shell Co. to buy out the neighborhood and relocate residents. In Allegheny County, Pa., bucket samples proved there was a chemical in the air that no industry had a permit to be releasing. An investigation is now under way to determine who is releasing the chemical, Knapp said.