Tuesday, July 23, 2013
Witness to Hoopeston tire fire calls experience "bizarre" (photos)
Last week, I wrote about a massive tire fire that burned in the small town of Hoopeston, Ill. In my post, I argued that citizen-based sensor journalism could have helped the community understand the local environmental impact of this man-made disaster.
I've sent an email to the IEPA requesting that the agency release the data they collected after the fire. In the meantime, we can assume from scientific studies that the tire fire released pollutants, toxins, cancer-causing chemicals, and even mutagens which can affect genetics thorough generations.
After publishing my post, I received a tweet from a follower who was at the scene. Dan Johnson, a fellow Urbana, Ill. resident, just received a new camera and thought the Hoopeston tire fire would be an opportunity to try it out. He was shocked by what he saw.
Monday, July 22, 2013
UAVs Pros Cons in Toronto: safety and dialogue are keys to legitimacy
Ian Hannah of Avrobotics.ca displayed his professional hexcopter at the UAVs Pros Cons Symposium in Toronto. |
The townspeople may or may not be "real" about their proposed law, given the likelihood of people being injured by gunfire or falling drones, but fear of unmanned aircraft systems (dronephobia?) is real. This fear is rooted in a disconnect between popular media, and the actual uses and potential for the technology.
UAVs Pros-Cons was an effort bring expert knowledge to the public, while at the same time providing a discussion of many of the legitimate concerns over drones and their uses.
Tags:
Alexander Hayes
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Andrew Clement
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Avner Levin
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Avrobotics.ca
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drones
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Ian Hannah
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Katina Michael
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pros cons
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Ramona Pringle
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Ryerson
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sUAS
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Toronto
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UAS
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UAVs
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UAVs Pros Cons
Wednesday, July 17, 2013
A massive, toxic tire fire, and how citizen sensor journalism could have informed a community in crisis.
A fire at a tire disposal plant in the small town of Hoopeston, Ill., polluted the skies for hours. Photo by @JonathonLinares. |
Initial reports from fire crews suggested the fire could burn for days. By the time it was extinguished the next day, more than 100 firefighters from two states had come to snuff the tire fire, about 500 homes had been evacuated, and rail service through the town was shut down.
According to the Champaign-Urbana NPR affiliate WILL, state environmental officials requested that the state's attorney general to issue a court order to stop the business until it's determined how the fire started, how safe the business is, and what kind of environmental impact this fire had on the community.
The Illinois Environmental Protection Agency seems primarily concerned with the air and water at the moment. A tremendous amount of water was used to extinguish the blaze, and that water has been contaminated with the byproducts of burning tires.
Obviously, there's a great deal of burning material that was sent into the air. IEPA has been monitoring the air in Hoopeston (pop. 5,321), but that data hasn't been made public on any sort of accessible website.
Monday, July 15, 2013
Illinois EPA looking to cut back on air monitoring
Facing the prospect of budget cuts, the Illinois Environmental Protection Agency has drafted plans to reduce the number of air quality sensors throughout the state.
The 2014 Ambient Air Monitoring Plan, drafted in May by the IEPA, recommends that the agency discontinue one sulfur monitoring site, one particulate matter monitor, and three lead monitoring sites.
"The proposed 2014 network plan provides select discontinuations from the plan approved by US EPA and operated in 2013," the plan reads (PDF). "The design of the monitoring network for 2014 has also been based upon the assumption that funding to support the monitoring program is likely to be reduced in fiscal year 2014 and that all efforts would be made to keep as much of the network intact as possible."
The particulate matter monitor is located atop Washington High School in the South Side of Chicago, one of the more polluted parts of the city. It specifically measures the amount of particles under 10 micrometers in diameter, known as PM 10, which can damage lung tissue, cause cancer, and lead to death.
According to the IEPA's 2011 annual air report (2012 and 2013 reports are not available from the website), this was the same monitoring station that observed the highest annual average concentration of airborne cadmium and sulfur in the state for that year.
The 2014 Ambient Air Monitoring Plan, drafted in May by the IEPA, recommends that the agency discontinue one sulfur monitoring site, one particulate matter monitor, and three lead monitoring sites.
"The proposed 2014 network plan provides select discontinuations from the plan approved by US EPA and operated in 2013," the plan reads (PDF). "The design of the monitoring network for 2014 has also been based upon the assumption that funding to support the monitoring program is likely to be reduced in fiscal year 2014 and that all efforts would be made to keep as much of the network intact as possible."
The particulate matter monitor is located atop Washington High School in the South Side of Chicago, one of the more polluted parts of the city. It specifically measures the amount of particles under 10 micrometers in diameter, known as PM 10, which can damage lung tissue, cause cancer, and lead to death.
According to the IEPA's 2011 annual air report (2012 and 2013 reports are not available from the website), this was the same monitoring station that observed the highest annual average concentration of airborne cadmium and sulfur in the state for that year.
Tags:
ADM
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air quality
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Archer Daniels Midland
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environment
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environmental journalism
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IEPA
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sensor journalism
Thursday, July 11, 2013
Why the word "drone" is scaring neighbors, creating bad legislation, and blocking an economic boom.
This disruption had a passing resemblance to what happened to other American industries. The hard work once done by skilled, human hands was now being automated by the calculating actuators of a machine.
Automation had long since dominated the appliance, automotive, and electronics industries. But this was a brand new territory – aviation.
The reduced price and size, and the increased reliability and capability of processors, sensors and batteries meant unmanned aviation had been unleashed. A nouveau DIY revolution meant that basements and garages were once again incubating nascent technology, just as they did in the 1970s when the personal computer was being developed.
The silver lining is that the cost of search and rescue, disaster relief, monitoring wildlife, guarding endangered animals from being poached, and even medication delivery to underserved populations all could be slashed.
Like many other small startups in the unmanned aviation industry, my friend and her husband saw an opportunity. And despite criticism of slow progress on regulations, the Federal Aviation Administration also sees it. The FAA estimates that the market for commercial unmanned aerial systems will eventually reach $90 billion.
The Association for Unmanned Vehicles and Systems International (AUVSI) believes there will be an economic impact of $13.6 billion within 3 years that unmanned aircraft are integrated into the national airspace.
Where to start? What better way to get acquainted to the industry than attend one of the premier industry conference in the nation, hosted by AUVSI?
She learned about new applications for unmanned aircraft. She listened to a UAV operator who used his homemade robotic aircraft to assess flood damage in Thailand. The information gathered from the aerial vehicle allowed the government to make decisions that mitigated flooding in the country’s capital.
This was great. But when it came to talk shop, things became awkward when she used a five-letter word that began with the letter “d.”
“The conversation would just stop,” she said. “Just completely stop dead.”
Tags:
AR.Drone
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AUVSI
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Chris Anderson
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diy drones
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drone etymology
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drones
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drones for good
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Marc Corcoran
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Oregon SB 17
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origin of the word drone
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rise of the drones
Tuesday, June 18, 2013
Civilian whose drone was shot down over Turkey protests comes back for more video
Since May 28, citizens in Turkey have been protesting their government's plan to raze a park in the country's capital, and replace it with a commercial center and military barracks. Violence in Taksim Gezi Park has escalated much since then, with police hitting protesters with tear gas, rubber bullets, and water cannons.
On June 13, I reported on sUASNews.com that a civilian had been filming clashes between police and demonstrators from the sky with an RC aircraft, and that the drone had been shot out of the sky by police.
The drone's pilot, who goes by the name Jenk, was able to capture dramatic footage of the violence from the sky before his aircraft went down on June 11. Video from his DJI Phantom showed billowing smoke, and demonstrators scrambling to find cover from high-pressure water hoses and lobbing back the gas canisters from the riot police.
Now, it appears that Jenk has either repaired his drone or found a new one, and has returned to the Gezi Park protests to capture more aerial footage.
Thursday, June 6, 2013
Finding a definition and purpose for sensor journalism at the Tow Center
#Towsense presentation on mapping mangroves by Aaron Huslage, photo by Moshin Ali (@moshin) |
While we ate, the node's tiny LED lights blinked away as it took particulate matter readings every 30 seconds. A friend pointed out the interesting juxtaposition of the pollution monitor siting on a copy of Rachel Carson's Silent Spring. Our friend's husband, an entomologist, asked what it was all about.
"Part of the idea is to have people make these all over the country, especially places with bad air," I said.
"Interesting," he said. "You know... that doesn't sound much like journalism," he said. "It sounds like research."
I thought about it for a moment, and took a sip of the lemon-and-bourbon cocktail my wife prepared. I didn't have a good answer.
"Journalists are kind of unemployed at the moment, so we're looking for other things to do," I replied.
For me at least, the Tow Center's workshop helped find an answer to that question, and provide a deffinition and goal for sensor journalism. About 50 folks with backgrounds in journalism, science, architecture, community informatics, and computer technology came to the Tow Center's first sensor journalism workshop on June 1-2.
I owe a big debt to the organizers of this event: Emily Bell, the Tow Center director; Fergus Pitt, Tow research fellow; Taylor Owen, Tow research director; along with Laura Kurgan, director of the spatial design lab at Columbia; and Chris Van Der Walt and Sara Jayne Farmer of Change Assembly, Inc.
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