By Nneka Nwogwugwu
Environmentalist, Brent Walls is helping to bring drone technology into the fight against pollution. He works for the Waterkeeper Alliance, a worldwide network of clean water groups.
The unmanned aircraft are especially useful for searching for polluted areas surrounded by private land.
The Clean Water Act permits individuals – not just federal officials – to enforce the law. But even though drones can be very useful in searching out polluted areas, they are rarely used in this way but Walls hopes to change that.
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To use drones to collect evidence, activists must have a federally issued pilot’s certificate. They must also learn to work within state and local laws.
Walls is part of a group called “Riverkeepers.” It is a non-profit organization that watches over and protects river systems across the United States. Walls himself is the Riverkeeper for the upper Potomac River in the northeastern United States.
The Riverkeepers have used drones to collect evidence for legal cases in the past. Walls says images from drones helped push a coal mining organization in West Virginia to clean up their operations.
Drone technology has been developing very quickly. New drones are easier to fly and capture better images compared to older models. The drones used by Walls’ students are paid for with a grant. They cost around $2,000 each.
