A House Republican-backed bill advancing through the General Assembly would prevent the Louisville Metro Air Pollution Control District and Kentucky Energy and Environment Cabinet from using certain data sources to enforce restrictions on airborne contaminants.
Environmental advocates say House Bill 137 could disqualify low-cost methods that community members rely on to monitor their neighborhoods for dangers and push for improvements.
Under the proposed legislation, the agencies could base cases only on:
- Data collection methods, emissions tests or monitoring methods approved by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
- Methods or tests that produce “scientifically defensible and quality-assured data” the EPA accepts “for enforcement purposes.”
Members of the House passed the bill last week. The Senate will now consider the measure.
The bill’s sponsor, Republican Rep. Jim Gooch Jr. of Providence, has said the goal is to ensure quality data is used because businesses face “severe penalties” for violating air pollution rules. In his opinion, the bill wouldn't impede residents’ right to clean air.
Environmental and community advocates still have concerns. The Kentucky Center for Investigative Reporting spoke with Eboni Neal Cochran, leader of a longstanding, grassroots group of west Louisville residents called Rubbertown Emergency ACTion.
REACT fights to protect west Louisville neighborhoods from air pollution, including pollutants coming from the Rubbertown industrial complex, where companies have sent toxic materials airborne for decades.
Listen to the conversation in the audio player above.
This transcript has been edited for length and clarity.
Morgan Watkins: You've been working on air pollution issues in the Rubbertown area of Louisville for years. Tell me about the community-led air monitoring work REACT does.
Eboni Cochran: REACT was initially a campaign of the Justice Resource Center led by the late Rev. Louis Coleman. I cannot leave that out, that bit of history. Part of what REACT does involves community air monitoring. When I first started out back in 2003, we would take a simple bucket that had a vacuum mechanism to it. We would follow the protocol, take that air sample, send it to a lab in California, get those results back – and that was a good way of determining, you know, what was in the air. We've also done some work with the PurpleAir monitors and also some handheld particulate matter monitors. They're all relatively low cost.
MW: What are your thoughts on House Bill 137 and how it could affect efforts to reduce air pollution?
EC: First of all, we're opposed to House Bill 137. I believe that it limits the type of tools that can be used to make sure that our communities are safer. We have a right to know what's in the air, what we're being affected by and in what concentrations. And so it's important that people living in impacted communities are able to submit evidence of violations, and that the evidence will be able to be used toward enforcement action.
Although hazardous industries are in operation 24 hours a day, there is no compliance coverage 24 hours a day as it pertains to the Air Pollution Control District here in Louisville. There are many instances in which residents witness violations that occur after the regulatory agency is closed. After hours, it is those who live in the neighborhoods who are best positioned to capture evidence of those violations. If we are not allowed to utilize certain tools in order to capture that information, then that evidence is lost, and we're just left with that injustice.
MW: So what’s the current state of air pollution in neighborhoods in west Louisville right now?
EC: If you're looking through the lens of the regulatory agency, they will tell you that things are getting better. But what we will tell you as residents who live in west Louisville is that things were so bad in the past that even the reductions that have been happening over the years leave us with very bad conditions, still.
MW: If the legislature passes House Bill 137, will that affect the work that REACT is doing? And what kind of legislation would you want to see the legislature pass on air pollution?
EC: If this legislation passed, it would be detrimental. But just like all the people before us, we’ll continue fighting for environmental justice. It's not going to stop the work that we do. We just have to change the work we do.
You know, this bill is similar to bills that were introduced in West Virginia and Louisiana. People knew this bill was coming to Kentucky. And so my hope would be that the Democrats in the legislature, or even some Republicans who would be in agreement, would come together and begin creating legislation that was more protective that they could run through several different states. So we don't always have to be on the defensive.
We'll continue to do our air monitoring and use that air monitoring to tell our story, in hopes that someday there will be a legislator courageous enough to support us, to help tell our story and to draft legislation that is protective of the residents living in our neighborhoods.
