Public Lab Research note


Querying the US National Response Center's data for reports of "plastic" to the US Coast Guard, with Skytruth.org

by eustatic | September 23, 2020 16:43 23 Sep 16:43 | #24634 | #24634

As part of the Gulf Monitoring Consortium, Skytruth offers their alerts system to synthesize an unwieldy database for a very accessible reporting system.

Here's a map of reports of "Plastic" to the USCG, USA, National Response Center, courtesy of Skytruth and the Gulf Monitoring Consortium ::

http://alerts.skytruth.org/issue/186-plastic

There were 2437 reports, focused on population centers and the industrial ocean on the Gulf Coast. 1126 (46%) reports are from the Gulf States, South of Jackson, Mississippi ("US Gulf Coast").

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These are downloadable as a kml or csv file format.

These are not all microplastics, but "burning plastic smell," and "pellets", and even "nurdles", as well as "plastic drum"s that hold other materials, like oil.

"plastic" 1126 of 2437 48% US Gulf Coast

"pellet" 35 of 199 17.5% US Gulf Coast

"nurdle" 1 of 1 100% US Gulf Coast (Chalmette, resident report)

"plastic" 610 of 2437 25% TX Coast 545 reports in Point Comfort! Formosa "Plastics"

"pellet" 5 of 199 2.5% TX Coast

"nurdle" 0 of 1 0% TX Coast

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How does this coincide with the nurdle patrol data?

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How does this represent the lack of attention to the issue from government agencies?

As advocates, we encourage residents to report to NRC, since the number, 1 800 424 8802, is an accessible technology to most, and can create jobs, via clean up work.

Here are reports related to the CMA CMG Bianca event in New Orleans from TS Marco.

The First report does not contain any of these keywords.

NRC Report ID: 1285183

https://alerts.skytruth.org/report/f473cbc4-3e20-a3fe-a59d-af9f0ae90c33/

NRC Report ID: 1283938

https://alerts.skytruth.org/report/612171cb-ed52-864b-d573-a43ef3bd4174/

NRC Report ID: 1283508

https://alerts.skytruth.org/report/d6daae57-b30b-47fb-b6be-50db498046d1


4 Comments

@eustatic - loving your posts lately! Thanks for sharing this great map. Now I am going to look up my area on Skytruth.org !

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Here's one that this query missed: https://alerts.skytruth.org/report/a98468d0-7df2-35f5-98c0-8837e1c166f5/

NRC Report: Polyvinyl Chloride (Powder) near New Orleans, LA SkyTruth Id: a98468d0-7df2-35f5-98c0-8837e1c166f5 Source: Click here 1032748 Date/Time: 2012 December 09 / 8:00 am Lat/Lng: 29.98849/-90.02956 Tags: ['NRC', 'LABB', 'release']

Report Details NRC Report ID: 1032748 Incident Time: 2012-12-09 08:00:00 Nearest City: New Orleans, LA Location: PACING WAREHOUSE 3900 FRANCE ROAD PARKWAY Incident Type: FIXED Material: POLYVINYL CHLORIDE (POWDER) Medium Affected: OTHER Suspected Responsible Party: TCI PACKAGING SkyTruth Analysis Lat/Long: 29.988487, -90.029562 (Approximated from street_address) Report Description CALLER IS REPORTING A RELEASE OF POLYVINYL CHLORIDE FROM THE SYLO'S AND RAIL CARS THAT THEY TAKE THE PRODUCTS OUT OF THROUGH A VACUUM SYSTEM AND THEY ARE BLOWING THE MATERIAL ALL OVER THE PLACE. THIS HAS BEEN ONGOING FOR OVER 8 MONTHS.

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many new orleans area reports are required due to rail accidents, and not for the pollution. thus:

https://alerts.skytruth.org/report/8520dd1f-efb8-af33-9dec-cd9d82e18248/

Source: Click here 1256381 Date/Time: 2019 August 26 / 3:16 am Lat/Lng: 29.91854/-90.21091 Tags: ['NRC', 'other', 'LABB', 'release']

Report Details NRC Report ID: 1256381 Incident Time: 2019-08-26 03:16:00 Nearest City: Waggaman, LA Location: MP 14 Incident Type: RAILROAD Material: PLASTIC PELLETS Medium Affected: BALLAST SkyTruth Analysis Lat/Long: 29.918539, -90.210909 (Approximated from locality) Report DescriptionCALLER REPORTED A TRAIN THAT WAS TRAVELLING OVER A SWITCH AND THE SWITCH CAME OUT OF ALIGNMENT CAUSING A SEVEN CAR DERAILMENT. ALL CARS ARE IN THE UPRIGHT POSITION.

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@eustatic - were you able to find these 2 other reports by searching other relevant key words like Polyvinyl Chloride (Powder) and rail incidents? What led you to the latter, was it the Dec 2012 powder post as a tip off?

Is this a question? Click here to post it to the Questions page.

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