For years, foul odors have plagued the people living in the shadow of St. Croix’s industrial zone. But residents of Estates Profit, New Works, Bethlehem and Machuchal now have a new weapon in their battle for a healthier environment – a souped-up five-gallon bucket.
The Bucket Brigade project will train neighbors of St. Croix’s heavy industry to build and operate their own air-monitoring devices that will help track harmful air pollution back to its source. In conjunction with the St. Croix Environmental Association, Community for a Better Environment, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Hovensa and the private Beldon Fund, residents themselves will be able to take "grab samples" when there is a particularly nasty smell wafting through their neighborhoods.
Residents claim such incidents have led to a variety of health ailments.
"Who is going to be the best watchdogs?" asked Denny Larson, Bucket Brigade organizer. "The people in the community. Essentially, we are turning them into community environmental police."
After a course on "air pollution 101," Larson said air samples taken by residents will be extracted from 30, $125 buckets equipped with an inexpensive vacuum pump, an intake valve and a special bag and then shipped via Federal Express to a laboratory in California for testing.
The $80,000 program, which includes the buckets and 50 tests in the first year, is being funded by the EPA, the Beldon Fund and the California-based Community for a Better Environment, Larson said.
Of significant note is the involvement of Hovensa, which operates the largest oil refinery in the western hemisphere on St. Croix. In other areas where CBE has organized Bucket Brigades, refineries have been extremely reluctant to participate. Not so with Hovensa, Larson said.
"It was quite historic because we never got a positive response from any refinery in the U.S.," he said. "This will allow the refinery to develop an actual working relationship with the community."
Yvonne Petersen, SEA’s executive director, also noted Hovensa’s participation. "No other program has had the cooperation of the refinery on the level this one has," she said.
What the bucket samples will do is help identify what emissions belong to what facility in the industrial area. Along with Hovensa, there is the Aluminum Corporation of America’s bauxite refinery, and the V.I. government’s wastewater treatment plant and landfill.
Petrochemical plants like Hovensa’s refinery produce thousands of tons of emissions each year, Larson said. Hovensa is within allowable limits for emissions such as sulphur dioxide, but neither it nor St. Croix Alumina monitor for volatile organic compounds such as benzine, toluene or zylene.
"It’s a major gap," Larson said, noting that benzine is a potentially cancer-causing byproduct of petroleum refining. "There could potentially be an effect on neighboring communities. The issue is, what is the effect of all that exposure? We just don’t know."