Sarnia man heads international agency

Sarnia’s Ron Plain has been elected to a two-year term as president of the international environmental organization Global Community Monitor.

Based in California, it helps residents living near industrial sites set up “bucket brigade” air monitoring programs.

Plain, an environmental activist born at Aamjiwnaang First Nation, joined the board of Global Community Monitor last year.

The organization helped residents of Aamjiwnaang, a First Nation in the middle of Chemical Valley, set up an air monitoring system in 2009.

“They help communities develop skills and empower them to add to their campaigns,” he said.

“In Aamjiwnaang’s case, when government or industry said, ‘We did air tests,’ we could stand beside them and say, ‘So did we.’”

The impact of helping communities do their own air testing is “huge,” Plain said.

“It gives a community member a feeling of participation, rather than just sitting idly by while others decide your fate.”

Global Community Monitor has helped set up its air-testing bucket brigades in communities in 27 countries.

Those test results have been used to document and understand the impact of industrial pollution, as well as launch advocacy efforts against polluters, the agency says.

Plain said his role as president will only require him to make one or two trips a year to the California office.

Board meetings are held via Skype, as board members come from far and wide.

Plain grew up in Toronto and returned to Aamjiwnaang in the mid-1990s.

Educated in occupational health and safety, Plain said he was running a medical supply store on Aamjiwnaang when he took on the issue of environment and health in the community.

“People started to use my store as the meeting place, and that’s how I got to be the leader of it, I guess.”

He works as an environmental policy analyst for the Southern First Nations Secretariat, and teaches at Trent University and other schools.

Plain has joined fellow Aamjiwnaang member Ada Lockridge in launching legal action against Ontario’s Ministry of Environment over the cumulative impacts of pollution from local refineries and chemical facilities.

About three years ago, Plain moved his family to Sarnia because of his concerns about pollution on the First Nation was impacting his children’s health.

Plain said he doesn’t believe progress is being made to reduce pollution in the community.

“I think we’re worse off today,” he said, adding he blames the failure of governments to enforce their own environment laws.

“I don’t blame industry … Industry is like a child. They’ll do what the government lets them do.”