Air pollution monitoring is about to go grassroots in Erie.

Starting next week, a small group of anti-drilling advocates will take to the streets, trails and fields of Erie with self-contained air monitoring containers to test for nearly 70 volatile organic compounds and other sulfur-based pollutants in the air.

They're part of the Bucket Brigade movement, the brainchild of California-based non-profit environmental justice organization Global Community Monitor, and they will soon be sending samples of the town's air to a lab for analysis.

"The community is the front line -- they are the ones seeing, smelling, hearing and feeling what's going on," said Ruth Breech, program director for Global Community Monitor. "We teach them how to use that information to engage the regulators and the polluting companies in a much more meaningful way."

The organization partnered with local anti-fracking activist group Erie Rising to make available four of the 18-quart containers, equipped with nozzles and valves, and lined with 10-liter bags that allow users with relative ease to grab samples of air from wherever they want.

The groups are providing a full day training on the buckets today. There will be about a dozen Erie residents in the brigade and the buckets will be stationed in different parts of town.

For a while, parents in Erie have complained that they and their kids have experienced more nosebleeds, asthma and other health problems as natural gas wells have been drilled and hydraulically fractured -- or fracked -- in or close to residential areas.

And many of them believe volatile organic compounds -- such as benzene and propane -- are being emitted from well sites and contributing to their symptoms.

They cited a preliminary study done by the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration that showed elevated levels of propane in Erie's air. Those findings helped bring about a moratorium on any new drilling activity in the town for six months, starting in March.

The oil and gas industry has said there are no proven health effects from drilling. Furthermore, subsequent analyses done by other scientists showed that the propane levels measured by NOAA in Erie weren't at concentrations deemed harmful to human health.

Breech said it's not uncommon for there to be conflicting data sets and interpretations with something as complex as air quality. She said her organization uses an independent lab to test air samples and the group will present the results in a scientific and dispassionate way.

"When the results come back, we'll put them in context," she said.

Andrea Roy, one of the members of Erie's Bucket Brigade, said she simply wants answers to questions that never seem to get a clear response.

"We want to know what's going into the air," Roy said. "It's nice that we have the option to do this on our own."

Jen Palazzolo, a member of Erie Rising, said the brigade will do what it can with the limited funds it has. Each bucket sample costs nearly $400 to process and right now there is only enough money to pay for five samples to be sent to the lab.

She said Natalie Merchant, formerly of the band 10,000 Maniacs, is considering giving $10,000 to Erie Rising.

"If something comes up that is concerning, maybe we can get more funding," she said.

Palazzolo said the Bucket Brigade is a good way for her and her fellow residents to be involved in the issue of fracking and drilling without having to come up with tens of thousands of dollars for a professional environmental air monitoring program.

"We have to have some real answers that we haven't been able to get from the industry so we're left to get them on our own," she said.