The Clean Air Crusader
John Culpepper, Lower Washington Heights Neighborhood Association
John Culpepper, Lower Washington Heights Neighborhood Association
"See that truck? See that smoke? That's what we're
after!"
John Culpepper has declared war on dirty air. His weapon: an
E-Sampler Particulate Monitor, a portable device that measures PM 2.5--the tiny
particles emitted by cars, trucks, buses, factories, power plants and
construction sites. PM 2.5 works its way deep into the lungs, aggravating
asthma and other respiratory problems. When neighborhood groups want to cut
down on the sea of dust, they call John Culpepper.
Culpepper, a retired sea merchant and executive director of the
Lower Washington Heights Neighborhood Association, started looking into air
quality in the mid-1990s, after he learned of the alarmingly high child asthma
rates in his community. When the state and federal environmental agencies
teamed up to install two dozen air monitoring devices around the city,
Culpepper helped get one set up on West 182nd Street. But the EPA rejected
Culpepper's request for a second monitor at a school on 155th Street, near a
heavily trafficked truck route. "So we came up with the idea to get our
own machine," says Culpepper. Local elected officials obliged with
contributions.
Culpepper and Edgar Freud, a retired electrical engineer, look
for hot spots where PM 2.5 levels average higher than 15--the threshold above
which air can be harmful to health, according to the EPA--and supply the data
to community organizations.
The Federation of Civic Associations in Southeast Queens
recently called to get air readings at two waste-transfer stations. Since the
closest monitor is in North Queens, residents are wondering how accurately the
state Department of Environmental Conservation's regional readings measure the
air in their own neigborhood. Once they obtain it, they plan to take the data
to DEC, which controls the permit for the trash sites, as well as the
Department of City Planning, which regulates their zoning.
"His organization provides an essential service," says
Gerry Bogacz, planning group director of the New York Metropolitan
Transportation Council (NYMTC), a regional association of transit agencies that
has worked with Culpepper to address the problem of idling buses in Washington
Heights. Though NYMTC relies only on regional data, Bogacz says Culpepper's
localized information is important because it enables communities to determine
sources of pollution and mobilize to lower their impact. Says Bogacz, "In
his role as a community representative, he's supplementing the information DEC
provides."
But Ray Warner, chief of the air-programs branch at the EPA,
says Culpepper's monitor isn't providing a whole lot of new information.
"We have monitors in the area and we already believe the air quality in
Washington Heights, the Bronx, and Queens is unhealthful," says Warner.
Still, he thinks Culpepper is successfully prompting needed local action.
"You have trucks going down streets they shouldn't be going down. Figuring
out routes, cracking down on idling trucks--this is done at the local
level."
Culpepper and Freud would like to purchase a second monitor and
hire additional staff. But another monitor would cost around $8,000, and the
work is time-consuming--the EPA will only honor data taken in a single spot
over the course of six continuous hours.
"We know it's bad; we just want to know how bad," says
Culpepper. "I want the agencies to know there's another set of eyes out
here."
Peter Pomponi
Met One Instruments, Inc.
ppomponi@metone.com
(541) 471 7111 ph
(541) 471 7116 fax
Met One Instruments, Inc.
ppomponi@metone.com
(541) 471 7111 ph
(541) 471 7116 fax