"Communities around Louisiana, in a bid to get more information about the environmental and health impacts of industrial pollution, are taking data collection into their own hands — despite a law restricting how their research findings can be used to enforce state regulations.
The practice is called community, citizen or participatory science, and it involves data collected from non-scientists that’s passed along to researchers who use their expertise to study and understand what they mean. From air quality to fisheries impacts, the grassroots-gathered information has the potential to inform the public about impacts of nearby industry.
“Our challenge for really a couple decades has been: How can we get something that can empower the communities to be able to speak for themselves, about the issues, with data?” said Marylee Orr, executive director of Louisiana Environmental Action Network.
The Louisiana-based nonprofit, long involved with community air monitoring projects, recently posted on its website an interactive air monitoring dashboard. The site gives continuous updates from air quality sensors placed at four locations along the Mississippi River in the heavily industrialized corridor between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. The dashboard also lists locations and readings from Louisiana Department of Environmental Quality monitors."
Elise Plunk reports for the Louisiana Illuminator November 2, 2025.
