Groups join forces to gauge air pollution in Rockland

ROCKLAND – The local campaign against toxicity from diesel train emissions is gathering strength in numbers with help from two international environmental groups that are organizing several Maine communities concerned with their own air pollution.

The neighborhood group, Clean Air for Rockland, has joined volunteers from all over the state to learn how to obtain air samples at local toxic “hot spots.”

Concerned about the harmful effects of diesel emissions from idling passenger rail locomotives, Clean Air for Rockland has sought help from Maine Toxics Action of Portland and Global Community Monitor of San Francisco to learn how to measure contamination in the air.

The Rockland group will be testing diesel emissions near their homes while other communities will be testing their neighborhoods near construction and debris dumps, pesticide spraying, asphalt plants and other toxic sources, said Sandra Schramm of Clean Air for Rockland.

“For the first time, community members will test the air they breathe,” said Schramm, who has long contended that diesel pollution from the Maine Eastern Railroad locomotives is affecting residents’ health.

“We will get lab results that will determine exactly what we are being exposed to and know whether these are safe levels,” she said.

In April, Schramm was selected as one of the top community leaders in New England for her environmental commitment to the residents of Rockland for her work with neighborhood groups to eliminate toxic diesel emissions and noise pollution from a residential area surrounding the Union Street Station used by Maine Eastern Railroad.

Early in August, Schramm of Clean Air for Rockland, Ed Spencer of We the People of Old Town, and Dan Gregoire of Don’t Dump on ME of Lewiston received training to learn how to collect air samples.

Clean Air for Rockland members are testing diesel emissions near their homes, using a badge that collects the presence of formaldehyde in the air, and forming a “bucket brigade,” a simple but effective tool that dozens of communities have used to find out for themselves what chemicals are in the air, said Denny Larson, Global Community Monitor executive director.

The “bucket brigade” is named for an easy-to-use air-sampling device housed inside a 5-gallon plastic bucket. The bucket idea originated in 1995 with Edward Masry. He is the lawyer who worked with environmental activist Erin Brockovich, a legal clerk who, despite the lack of a formal law education, was instrumental in constructing a case against the $28 billion Pacific Gas and Electric Co. of California in 1993, said Larson.

“This system is the environmental equivalent of a crime watch program,” Larson said. “People can take a sample of a pollution release as it occurs, to prove their exposure.”

Aware of the problems from diesel exhaust in Rockland, Spencer of Old Town said his group is also engaged in taking air tests locally.

“Our main concerns are the state-owned landfill in Old Town and the pulp mill and special boiler used for processing biomass fuel,” he said. “We have taken one sample, sent it to a lab in California.” He said he would not identify where he sampled the air.

Spencer said Larson of GC Monitor visited Old Town early in August to show We the People how to build and operate the bucket. Larson also met with Gregoire at the public library in Brunswick and with Schramm in Rockland.

“This is a way to find out what’s going on,” Spencer said of the testing. “Our tests have no standing legally, but they will give us evidence to take to the [Maine] Department of Environmental Protection to get them to do their own testing.”

He is concerned about emissions from the pulp mill formerly owned by Georgia-Pacific Corp., now owned by Red Shield Environmental LLC, and the mill’s biomass boiler in Old Town.

The boiler runs on a mixture of green wood chips and 45 percent construction and demolition debris producing power for the mill and electricity that’s being sold to the power grid. The boiler is permitted to burn up to 500 tons of fuel a day. Half of that fuel can be construction and demolition debris, which is sorted waste wood that is less expensive than green chips.

Spencer’s concern is with the agreement Red Shield has with the Rutland, Vt.-based Casella Waste Systems Inc., giving the waste operator the right to landfill nonburnables in the state-owned Juniper Ridge Landfill in West Old Town. Even though the waste might have come from out of state, the agreement allows Casella to bury the debris as local waste, Spencer said.

Gregoire’s following, known as Don’t Dump on ME: A Group of Concerned Citizens for Our Health, Air, Water, Land & Community Environment, based in Lewiston, uses the play on the word “me” to illustrate his opposition to Casella using the city landfill as a dump site for out-of-state construction waste.

Casella is negotiating with the Lewiston City Council to authorize a local referendum that would make the Vermont-based company the operator of the city dump, Gregoire said.

Gregoire urges residents to attend the Lewiston Solid Waste Task Force meeting at 6 p.m. Monday in Lewiston City Council Chambers and a Sept. 4 City Council meeting.