A toxic drop in the bucket
DIY environmentalists won’t wait for others to clear the air
BY Jesse McLean
Photography courtesy Global Community Monitor
For years, Ada Lockridge smelled the sweet stench of chemicals billowing out of the surrounding industries. And for years, the Ministry of the Environment reassured her and the Aamjiwnaang First Nations that the air was fine. But Lockridge isn’t waiting for their reassurances any longer.
In May, the Aboriginal community teamed up with international pollution busters Global Community Monitor (GCM) and began conducting their own air monitoring, the first such step in Canadian history. Think of it as do-it-yourself environmentalism. “The government let us down,” says Lockridge, an Aamjiwnaang resident who is also the chair of the community’s health and environment committee. “I always thought someone was looking out for us. Now we’re looking out for ourselves.”
Armed with the “bucket brigade”—a device that’s built inside a five-gallon plastic bucket and can detect upwards of 88 toxins in the air—Lockridge intends to report the data collected in the buckets directly to the ministry and the public. Removing the government’s reliance on the industries’ records, which often claim to have no off-site impact, is empowering for the community, says GCM’s program director, Ruth Breech. “We’re balancing the playing field by getting the whole side of the story.”
The Aamjiwnaang community, whose reserve is fenced in on three sides by factories in Ontario’s infamous Chemical Valley, gained international attention in 2004 after health surveys discovered that female births outnumbered males by a two-to-one ratio. Several health experts suspect the skewed ratio is linked to gender-bending chemicals.
Yet Lockridge is clear that the intention isn’t to shut the industries down. Rather, the goal is to understand what chemicals are in the air and the health risks they carry, for those on the reserve and beyond. “Whether you’re within our community or a worker in the industries, you should know what you’re breathing—and we’re going to help,” she says.
