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1 Your web browser (Safari 7) is out of date. For more security, comfort and the best experience on this site: Update your browser Ignore MAPPING U P THE SPIL L Louisiana Bucket Brigade helps Gulf Coast residents track the oil spill For the complete article with media resources, visit: By Stuart Thornton Friday, January 21, 2011 Thousands of dead fish found in a shipping channel between the city of New Orleans and the Gulf of Mexico. A woman who has worked for a decade at a shrimp processing plant in Dulac, Louisiana, getting laid off due to fishery closures. The marsh grass surrounding Barataria Bay, Louisiana, covered in a coat of oil. All of the preceding incidents and 2,000 more have been documented on the Oil Spill Crisis Map, an interactive project organized by the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, an environmental health and justice organization. All the incidents have happened in the wake of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico. The Oil Spill Crisis Map was developed by the Louisiana Bucket Brigade and a class of graduate students at Tulane University in New Orleans. The online map allows community members to contribute to the map by text message, , Twitter, or by filling out a form online. The staff of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade attempts to verify all the reports that have been posted. The founding director of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, Anne Rolfes, explains the motivation behind creating the feature. The map is a way for an ordinary 1 of 5

2 person to document what is happening to them, she says. Without a map, there really isn t a way for a regular person to get their story in context with a lot of other stories. Bucket Brigade Before the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, the Louisiana Bucket Brigade was primarily known for outfitting communities adjacent to oil refineries and chemical plants with inexpensive air monitoring equipment known as buckets. The bucket is an easy-to-use air sampling device, Rolfes says. It takes an air sample, and it documents whatever toxic chemicals are in the air at that moment. This documentation gives people the kind of evidence that they need to go then and advocate for improvements. For example, in 1999, the Louisiana Bucket Brigade worked with an African- American neighborhood called Diamond, which was located adjacent to a Shell refinery and a chemical plant in Norco, Louisiana. Using the air-monitoring buckets, the community found high amounts of the chemicals benzene and methyl ethyl ketone. We helped the group in Norco they are called the Concerned Citizens of Norco finally, after years, convince Shell to buy out their contaminated property, so they could move to a healthier environment, Rolfes says. So they took a lot of air samples to achieve that. Oil Spill Crisis Map Currently, the Oil Spill Crisis Map is covered with colored dots that look like thumbtacks stuck into the page of an atlas. It s a map with dots on it, and every dot represents something that has happened because of the oil spill whether it s losing a job or seeing oil onshore 2 of 5

3 or a dead or injured animal, Rolfes says. Rolfes says that the stories of livelihoods destroyed by the oil spill have affected her more than any of the other posts on the map. Rolfes recalls one post from an oyster shucker, a skilled worker who opens oyster shells. There s an early report from an oyster shucker that says he had all of his equipment he had the knives, he had the gloves, he used to go set up at parties, she says. This was his way of making an income, and now he said, I m going to have to hang up my gloves. The map provides the government and BP, the company responsible for the oil spill, with valuable information for their cleanup efforts. However, it appears that the residents of the Gulf Coast are benefiting the most from the Oil Spill Crisis Map. The people who have said that it has been the most helpful are the regular community people who said we found out about oil in our area from the map a full two to three days before we ever saw it ourselves, Rolfes says. Rolfes says that the organization will broaden the use of the Oil Spill Crisis Map so that it will become a new tool for the same kinds of communities that use the buckets. We are going to use this map now to document the chemical accidents next to refineries and chemical plants so that it won t just be the constituency that s on the coast impacted by the spill, but now also using this map is going to be the people who are the neighbors of these big plants, Rolfes says. Rolfes hopes that anyone who visits the Oil Spill Crisis Map will get a sense of the disaster s scope. The other piece is that we hope that this can be a tool to show people that it is not going to be over really for years to come, she says. Even though the well has been capped for the time being, the effects are going to keep washing onshore, and we are going to continue to document that and 3 of 5

4 encourage other people to do so. We hope that the world out there remains interested. Vocabulary Term adjacent Part of Speech adjectivenext to. 4 of 5 Definition advocate verb to argue in favor of something. atlas a collection of maps. contaminateverb decade 10 years. to poison or make hazardous. disaster terrible and damaging event. fishery industry or occupation of harvesting fish, either in the wild or through aquaculture. incident event or happening. inexpensive adjectivenot costing a lot of money. livelihood ability to economically support oneself. marsh oil oil spill wetland area usually covered by a shallow layer of seawater or freshwater. fossil fuel formed from the remains of marine plants and animals. Also known as petroleum or crude oil. accidental release of petroleum products into a body of water, either by an oil tanker or an offshore oil rig. outfit verb to provide gear and equipment. primarily adverb first or most important. toxic adjectivepoisonous. verify verb to prove as true. wake Websites track of waves left behind boats or other large objects moving through water. National Geographic News: Gulf Oil Spill News and Pictures Louisiana Bucket Brigade

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