Is The City Safe? Sample Alot In Many Places

I met this morning with Darren Ranco, a professor of Environmental Studies and Native American Studies, at Dartmouth College, and I'm delighted that he's agreed to be a Mosaic advisor of environmental sampling issues.

Professor Ranco is one of Dartmouth's specialists in environmental justice issues, and one of his core research areas is community monitoring of the environment, something sorely needed to understand the ongoing safety and health situation in New Orleans.

New Orleans already has groups like the Louisiana Bucket Brigade that help citizens test air samples in their communities, with EPA-approved tools. Supporting groups like this and developing new community groups enables more frequent and comprehensive environmental testing of the city.

The EPA obviously has a critical role to play. What we can do as private citizens is significantly augment the EPA's professsional efforts, helping conduct environmental sampling in New Orleans that is much more significant in scope.

Just like astronomy. There are professional astronomers (i.e., professors and researchers) who study the stars, and there are communities of amateur astronomers who play a critical role in making observations. There are more amateur astronomers than professional astronomers, and so the "amateurs" sometimes make very important discoveries. Their motivation to help drives them to become very capable, and there are more of them looking!!