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About Street roots. (Portland, OR) 1998-current | View Entire Issue (March 25, 2016)
Street Roots • March 25-31,2016 MOSS, from page 10 have confirmed a tight correlation between cadmium concentrations in moss and cadmium concentrations in the air. As more data comes in from the DEQ, she expects to find similar correlations. By taking leadership from moss, community work to address air pollution is likely to be far less expensive and less time- consuming than it was before. And according to Professor Linda George at Portland State University, personal air quality sensors will also become available in the near future, potentially generating even more public outrage. The only way that state agencies can get ahead of that, she said, is by acting now on what they already know. What we already know Previous studies show that Portland has a serious air pollution problem. USA Today’s 2007 report “The Smokestack Effect” showed that Portland students faced some of the worst air quality in the country. Thirty-five Portland schools were ranked in the top 5 percent for the most dangerous outdoor air quality in the country. Overall, Oregon has the third largest population facing an excess risk of cancer due to toxic air pollution, according to the EPA. And according to the Multnomah County Health Department, air pollution contributes to three leading causes of death in the county. The map of heavy metal hot spots has revealed factories that could have been using equipment to control their emissions years ago - but didn’t It was only after the moss data was revealed to surrounding neighborhoods that companies agreed to use equipment that would reduce human harm. DEQ’s belated response to some hot spots suggests that their response to air pollution has prioritized those with the greatest ability to organize, and not necessarily those who are the most at risk. The sequence of hot spot intervention In the aftermath of the moss study, DEQ appears to have put most of its air monitoring resources in Southeast Portland, then moved them up to North Portland near Tubman Middle School, and has only now started to deploy them in deep South Portland to address the nickel and arsenic hot spots surrounding Precision Castparts, an aerospace and weapons manufacturer. As of press time, other hot spots identified by the moss study have not jl lllll Commentary during a meeting in June 2015. apparently received agency attention, including the arsenic hot spot in the Cully Although some questions have still not neighborhood near the Native American been answered, it seems undeniable that Youth and Family Center. The DEQ did not moss is delivering better initial results than return calls to Street Roots to explain its traditional, mechanical air monitoring and is strategy in addressing these hot spots. quickly establishing itself as a key player in the fight against toxic At a community meeting on Feb. 28 at air pollution. Tubman Middle Jovan and her team School, some have already found an By ta kin g leadership from residents of North moss, com m unity w ork to ad extremely strong Portland expressed correlation between dress a ir p o llu tio n Is lik e ly to deep distrust of DEQ. cadmium he fa r less expensive and less concentrations in moss One woman asked tim e-consum ing than it was Portland Public and cadmium Schools officials why before. Mnd according to Pro concentrations in students from another fessor iln d a George at PSG, ambient air. New air school were moved data from across the personal a ir q u a lity sensors into the Tubman city may show similarly w ill also become available in building despite long strong correlations for standing information . the near future, p o tentia lly other metals, and (dating back to 2005) generating even more p u b lic produce conversion that the school was factors that allow moss outrage. The only way that being exposed to high state agencies can get ahead to become a reliable levels of cadmium. and low-cost proxy for o f that, she says, is by act “Why was this site ambient air in g now on what they already identified as a concentrations averaged know. temporary location over time. One big spot for Faubian unknown is how long students?” she asked. these metals are “So many questions accumulating in the remain unanswered moss. Jovan said she regarding health... and it’s not even just suspects the moss concentrations are about cancer. There are neurological reflective of air concentrations over the past concerns. There are behavioral concerns. several months to a year, as her team It’s not just about ‘the big cancer,’” she said. collected only the upper part of the moss’s Paul Anthony, a member of the school stem, but that these growth rates are board, joined PPS facilities manager David difficult to predict in advance. Hobbs in claiming that the school had some Regardless, Jovan said she is grateful to of the best air in the city due to its state of see the growing appreciation for mosses - the art ventilation system. But when “the underdogs of the plant world.” Portland Mercury reporter Dan Forbes asked them to respond to Stuart Batterman, Better living with moss a national expert who said such systems In her award-winning book “Gathering provide little protection from metals so far Moss,” Robin Wall Kimmerer documents over safe levels, they declined to comment. indigenous perspectives and uses of moss, The palpable sense of betrayal directed at presenting stories from the Potawatomi and PPS officials was reinforced by the story of other indigenous cultures of North America. Whitaker Middle School, which other Kimmerer explains that within the residents shared that evening. Whitaker was indigenous worldview she was raised in, demolished in 2007 after students and each plant has a particular place, a teachers had spent years suffering from particular purpose that it fulfills to care for mysterious health problems, and later people. The plants, she wrote, still discovered they had been exposed to high remember their gifts, even when the people levels of radon - facts that were have forgotten them. documented but not shared by school Many traditional uses of moss centered officials. After years of failed attempts to around its ability to absorb water, which properly ventilate the school, officials made it an effective tool for smoking camas decided to close it down instead. A similar roots and for cleaning salmon. It also made problem is shared by residents of the moss indispensable for the care of children, Brentwood-Darlington neighborhood, who making it in some ways the first disposable were promised full transparency by DEQ diaper. One species, Sphagnum, carries officials, but not informed of the moss study Page 11 astringent and antiseptic properties that prevent diaper rash, and can absorb up to 40 times its weight in water. For this reason, mosses were also used by women during their menstrual cycles. Because so much of this sanitary work with moss was the cultural responsibility of women, and related especially to their care of children, much of it was left out of official accounts by the gentlemen anthropologists of the day. “Their notebooks bulged with records of the pursuits of men: hunting, fishing, and making tools. When moss once appeared in a weapon, as wadding behind a harpoon tip, it was described in considerable detail.’” In hindsight, the attitude of these anthropologists toward women and their care of children was perhaps a clue to the kind of power- and machine-obsessed culture they were preparing to construct, which would lead directly to colonial resource extraction and eventually to an age “when smoke ran like water.” Later reactions against the excesses of corporate pollution would come primarily from women. In the early 1900s a women-led “municipal housekeeping” movement attacked the nation’s smokestacks and called for the institution of responsible housekeeping over the entire city to stop pollution and disease. Women across the country made successful alliances with engineers, medical professionals, and business leaders, driving in “smoke abatement” ordinances all across the country. Some 75 cities had adopted these laws by 1916. Much of the activism around air pollution in Portland has, coincidentally, also been led by women and mothers. The global mining industry to this day maintains deep links to the male-dominated institution of militarism, and both have actively denigrated living organisms while elevating the aesthetic of machines - with smooth operations and cold efficiency. A former anti-moss billboard in Portland spelled out this logic perfectly, reading simply: “Small, Green, Fuzzy? Kill It!” Following Kimmerer’s line of thinking, it is perhaps the case that moss is still carrying out its traditional role after all, not only by reminding us to respect our plant relations, but by helping us clean up industrial facilities, and their special variety of job-creating’ excretions.
