Part 1 - Types of Monitoring

Part 1 - Types of Monitoring Electronic Tools Side Event UNECE Aarhus Convention 1st Meeting of the Parties Lucca, Italy October 21-23, 2002 Frances Stanley-Jones International Campaign for Responsible Technology GIS Research Group

Why monitor? • Community-based monitoring programs are a powerful tool to bring a community together. • To gather information about an environmental problem or injustice to convince decision-makers to do something about it. • To protect the health and well being of communities and their environment.

Monitoring a “source” Chemical releases Chemicals in products Chemicals in food Hazardous incident Monitoring an “effect” Environmental concentrations Chemicals in food Biological effects Human health effects Ecological effects We monitor a source or an effect

Chemical or pollutant releases Definition: • Direct measurement of chemicals or pollutants in the environment • includes direct releases or emissions • includes environmental concentrations • releases are not the same as environmental concentrations

Chemical or pollutant releases • Advantages: • powerful and convincing direct measure of contamination • useful for modeling • Easy to understand and communicate • Disadvantages: • often difficult and/or costly • sometime have to estimate the release • Does not give information about effects • Examples: • measuring concentration in air, water, soil • tons of pesticides sold (is a surrogate for usage)

Chemical or pollutant releases • Case Study: Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition shellfish program • http://www.svtc.org/sust_water/cscb/index.html • Measure concentration of mercury and PCBs in shellfish deployed in contaminated streams streams. • School kids deployed and collected shellfish. • Kids learn about pollution and do something about it. • Shellfish accumulate these pollutants.

Chemical or pollutant releases • Case Study: Bucket Brigade in South Africa and Swaziland elsewhere. • http://www.gcmonitor.org/ • Use simple capture device (special bucket) to sample the air and detect air toxins. • Very effective way of measuring air quality in neighborhoods or near pollution sources • Great for community participation. • Buckets built by participants. • Bucket cost ~ $150, lab analysis in US is $450 (is analysis available everywhere?).

Silicon Valley Toxics Coalition Eco-Maps Series http://www.svtc.org/ecomaps/svtc_ecomaps/index.html Schools, hospitals and parks shown in relation to chemical sites...

Ecological/Biological Effects • Definition: • Measurement of environmental conditions and their effects on organisms or ecosystems. • Advantages: • directly measures an impact of contaminants in the environment • Disadvantages: • Does not, by itself, tell the cause. • Requires some expertise • Examples: • measuring failed to hatch bird eggs • Along with chemical concentrations in egg

Ecological/Biological Effects • Case Study: Measuring benthic macroinvertebrates in a stream to assess stream condition. Benthic organisms are those that live on the bottom of lakes, rivers, streams, ponds and wetlands. • http://plasma.ycas.yorku.ca/mapref/ • Benthic organisms are good indicators because • They are abundant, do not move fast, and are localized due to their restricted mobility and habitat preferences. • They are continuously subjected to the full rigor of the local environment. • They show range of tolerances to various degrees and types of pollution • They integrate the effects of all pollutants and environmental conditions over time. • They are collected with relatively inexpensive and easy-to-use equipment. • They are readily identified by community members to the order/family level which is useful for interpretation of environmental conditions.

Human Health/Body Burden Lead to human exposure and possible disease Toxins from industry, products, and food

Body Burden Monitoring • Measurement of human health or the measurement of chemicals or pollutants in the human organism. • Body Burden refers to naturally occurring or man-made chemicals measured in an individual that serve no useful health or nutritional purposes, and that may be harmful to human health.

Human Health/Body Burden • Advantages: • Direct measurement of cumulative exposure • Very powerful evidence for use in campaigns • Disadvantages: • Difficult to interpret meaning of results • Difficult to link to disease (lack of toxicology data) • Examples: • Measuring contaminants in blood, hair, urine • Chemicals can accumulate in body and can often be measured. • Case Study: • PHTHALATES: http://comeclean.org/body_burden/page7.htm

Hazardous Incidents/Emergencies • Definition: • An acutely hazardous incident poses an immediate threat to human or ecological health. • Advantages: • Direct and powerful evidence of a threat to human health and well-being. • Disadvantages: • Could be dangerous or difficult (timing) to measure. • What do we measure? And how? • What is the impact on health? • Examples: • Chemical fire, explosion, chemical spill

Chemicals in food/products • Definition: • Investigations into known or suspected toxic chemical substances contained in commercial products or of hazards associated with the use of commercial products. • Advantages: • Can be helpful in preventing exposure • Useful information for campaigns against certain products • Disadvantages: • difficult to interpret results • Need to combine with exposure information • Examples: • Pesticide residues in food, lead in paint

Chemicals in food/products • Case Study: Detecting Pesticide Residues in Food • Texas Dept. and United States Dept. of Agriculture • http://www.texascenter.org/almanac/Land/PESTICIDESP4.HTML • Findings: • residues in violation were found in 63 samples. • Of 63 violative samples, 10 exceeded the tolerance level and the other 53 had residues where no tolerance was established. • Residues of 49 different pesticides were detected in approximately 60 percent of all samples. • Many samples contained multiple residues, with as many as eight found in one sample.

Regulatory performance/watchdog • Definition: • The monitoring of the performance of organizations both public and private assigned responsibility for a public regulation designed to protect health or the environment. • Advantages: • This is a way to get those people who are supposed to be protecting us to do their jobs • Disadvantages: • It may not work because of apathy, corruption, workload, priorities, power of polluters • Examples: • Publication of agency enforcement statistics • Publication of poor regulatory performance

Share your experiences! • What sorts of projects are you doing in these areas? • What have been the successes? • What were the challenges? • Are there other categories of monitoring not mentioned here in this workshop? • What additional information or technical resources would be helpful to make your projects more successful?

Part 1 - Types of Monitoring