EPA: Air pollution cancer risk higher in parts of O.C.
June 25th, 2009, 5:52 pm · 21 Comments · posted by Pat Brennan, science, environment editor
Parts of southern, central and northern Orange County face an “unacceptably high” cancer risk from toxic contaminants found in air pollution, a new report by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency shows.
And while most of Orange County’s cancer risk falls below the highest threshold used in the assessment – more than 100 people per million expected to develop cancer from these air contaminants in a 70-year lifetime – large patches remain on the high end, with at least 75 per million. Most of northern Orange County had a risk of at least 50 in one million.
“You could use that word,” Matthew Lakin, EPA air quality analysis office manager for the region that includes California, said of the ‘unacceptable’ label. “I would say greater than 100 in a million points to areas where we should do more work to reduce toxics.”
An ideal threshold, he said, would be less than one in a million, but that would be difficult to reach.
Caveats, questions
The report, called the National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment, is based on 2002 data on toxic air contaminants, the most recent available, and EPA cautioned that it does not include a cancer-risk assessment for diesel soot because the agency has not settled on a risk level for it.
Click to see larger image.
But the most recent study by the regional smog agency, the South Coast Air Quality Management District, found an average 1,200 per million risk from diesel soot for the Los Angeles air basin, which includes Orange County.
“That’s 84 percent of the cancer risk,” spokesman Sam Atwood said. “When you look at the whole picture, the risk is, in fact, much higher. It makes it even more compelling that we have unacceptably high risk levels from air pollution.”
The regional air district also is looking into an assertion in a story by USA Today that the EPA study identified a Cerritos neighborhood as having the nation’s highest cancer risk. The risk level, Atwood said, appears to be based on an assessment of emissions from a facility called Heraeus Metal Processing LLC in Santa Fe Springs. The air district is investigating further, he said.
EPA officials said Thursday they did not identify specific communities in the report.
Officials at Heraeus did not offer comment on the questions about their emissions Thursday.
The report, Atwood said, also identified emissions contributing to high cancer risk levels that the district concluded would have come from two Orange County facilities: Control Components Inc. in Rancho Santa Margarita, and a Chevron facility in La Habra. But Atwood said the Rancho Santa Margarita facility closed in 1991, the other in 2000.
Otherwise, Atwood said, the report offers more evidence that the Los Angeles basin has some of the nation’s worst air pollution.
“Obviously, our numbers are very different from the EPA study,” he said. “But I think, broadly, the AQMD study and the EPA report reached the same conclusion: that we have among the highest levels of toxic air pollution here of anyone in the country.”
Freeway nexus proves toxic
The nationwide report is based on toxic pollution readings and uses a fictitious entity well-known to pollution risk analysts: residents who spend an entire 70-year lifetime in one location.
While rare in the real population, the fictitious people are useful when trying to create models of cancer risk from exposure to various contaminants.
The map shows a large area with cancer risk above 100 in a million southeast of the point where the 55 and 405 freeways meet, spanning parts of Costa Mesa and Irvine, another where the 55 meets the 5 freeway, and another directly east of Mission Viejo stretching south toward Laguna Hills.
Those concentrations are not coincidental, said Arnold Den, senior science advisor for EPA in San Francisco.
“That would be expected,” he said. “If you’re near a freeway, there are higher concentrations. If you’re at the intersections of two freeways, there are contributions from both freeways.”
Nationwide, the report found that more than 2 million people live in census tracts where combined cancer risk from air contaminants is 100 in 1 million or higher. More than 284 million live where the combined risk is 10 in a million or higher. The nation’s average risk is 36 in a million.
The maps are meant as a guide to policymakers, but the report does not account for pollution reductions since 2002, or planned reductions.
There was good news from the report: since the Clean Air Act was amended in 1990, toxic air contaminants from all sources in the United States has dropped by 40 percent.
This assessment updates the agency’s last one, in 1999. The next, based on 2005 data, will be released late this year or in 2010.
The report examined 180 toxic air contaminants, and looked at risks of cancer as well as risk of non-cancer health effects.
The worst offender in California was benzene, found in auto exhaust; others of major concern in the state include 1,3-butadiene and formaldehyde.
This assessment updates the agency’s last one, in 1999. The next, based on 2005 data, will be released late this year or in 2010.
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Can we get a larger map up guys?
The EPA is a political body that leans far left. They have no credibility.
you really lost your compass, and your @$$ is Aiming North?
I have no doubt that our air quality is highly polluted. I also believe that such findings are intended for political debate as California attempts to seek ways to recover from our state wide deficit. Anything that would allow our legislatures to profit…and again, on whos dollar. On the other hand, cancer is a real life pandemic, where the epidemic is catastrophic. I do not find the EPA to be far left as some would assume them to be. Its all a matter of time when each of us will experience an illness that is unrelated to typical viral or bacterial conditions that are the result of poisons or other elements that man has created, and refuses to correct. Lets face the reality that science does exist, and the results of scientific studies has not nor will it ever be in favor of human kind.
Fascinating article. It looks like the heavier air pollution is in the industrial areas of Anaheim and Santa Ana.
This is due to the Air traffic patterns to John Wayne airport… Take off and landing pollution is proven to cause cancer and they want to expand JWA. I live in the landing patten and plan to file a class action suit against the Airlines, FAA and JWA as more information becomes avaialble. Airports should be built in non-residential areas not where children are playing outside…
Jeff,
Should you care to research ANY history of John Wayne Airport, you will find that the airport existed here in the form of a single strip dirt airfield LONG before any homes did. It was expanded only a handful of times due to the economic needs of this county and is the main reason why business has flourished here (and probably why Orange County is even on the map!), despite what you and your fellow lawsuit-happy airport expansion opponents care to think. I must reiterate that THE AIRPORT WAS NOT BUILT IN A RESIDENTIAL AREA, BUT RATHER DEVELOPERS DECIDED TO BUILD AROUND THE AIRPORT AND YOU WERE SUBSEQUENTLY “SMART” ENOUGH TO BUY THE HOME AND COMPLAIN ABOUT THE AIRPORT. Simple fact is, airports bring in business. Blame city planners for allowing you folks to live around the landing patterns but if this was an ideal world, all airports would probably be built out at sea. But oh wait, you would still complain about that because then developers would still build seaside homes and you would still move into them! Oh dear.. what a dilemma we have.
Now, if you care to consider that if each and every one of the passengers on a flight were to drive one car each, the pollution created by each passenger would far exceed the pollution created by a single aircraft carrying all 150+ of these passengers.
The more you know…
Seriously…..a lawsuit? I bet the airport was in existence before you moved under the approach path. I own a house near the 55 fwy, and with more evidence showing that living within 500 yards of a freeway increases respiatory illness/cancer, I’m thinking about moving. What am I going to do, sue the car and truck makers? Sue the state or the county? No, I chose to live here and despite a crappy housing market, I can choose to move to a different location. Besides, if you look at the map, all of OC is affected unless you move way up in to the canyons or the beaches south of Newport. Be glad you don’t live near LAX where it’s 24/7 air traffic.
Click on the map, it’ll become larger.
How about the OC map, Gary?
Not for me. Maybe it’s a Firefox thing.
What a Joke! This from the same agency that thinks we should “Cap-and-Tax” ourselves to a green nation.
The House is voting TODAY on the “cap and trade” National Energy Tax (H.R. 2454). This national energy tax would possibly be the largest tax increase in American history. Please contact your congressman and tell them to vote NO on this bill.
Below are some key facts as outlined in the Congressional Budget Office study:
1. Raise inflation-adjusted gasoline prices by 74%.
2. Raise electricity rates 90% after adjusting for inflation.
3. Raise the cost of living of a typical household by $1,600 a year.
4. Raise residential natural gas prices by 55%.
5. Destroy 1-3 million jobs per year, every year until 2035.
I am not opining either way on the legislation since I have not looked into it, but it seems to me that you are trying to convince people that your propaganda is true while the EPA’s is not. I think we need unbiased information about this legislation. I don’t believe one word that you say.
You missed the point that the data cited came from the CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE not the commenter. They’re bean-counters like yourself, and theoretically non-partisan government employees – unlike the Democrats who overwhelming supported this bill.
popcorn says:
June 25, 2009 at 11:22 pm
The EPA is a political body that leans far left. They have no credibility.
.
You are correct!
They force me and 10′s of millions of others to smog check our cars at great expense
And they totally ignore the millions of vehicles that non citizens drive belching out smoke
And they like the corrupt Sierra Club refuse to acknowledge that over population and the Illegal Invasion are the major cause of pollution
Yeah..I like the part of the article where it mentions JWA is to blame. I also like how it states that the airport was here way before smarties decided to move into the take off and landing path. Too funny!
Jeff maybe you shouldn’t move in next to an airport then sue them because there are planes flying over your house. You should have thought about that before you moved in, because I doubt you were there before the airport. Even if you were, then you should have moved out years ago.
Thank you, Americangirl1974,
Write to congress to dump HR 2454. Ignore the name. Like other noxious House Bills (The USA Patriot Act, for example) they give it a cute name.
The control freaks in the EPA (and the other alphabet soup agencies) will never be happy until every miniscule aspect of our lives is under their control under the auspices of saving us from ourselves even though they have no problem living high on the hog. We are now getting more speculation as to the future negative health effects of “Human induced climate change” when there is no evidence of it. As far as carcinogens, the air will never be clean enough. Even natural pollutants have to be regulated.
It’s interesting that the area around the end of the 241 has such a high risk. This is a relatively rural location. Is Control Components Inc. really contributing that much risk? If so, somethings seriously wrong.
You know, if you take a drive on the 5 fwy from say, San Diego and then head up in to North OC, you can see the difference in air quality, building and traffic density. It gets much worse the closer you head into L.A. This isn’t politics, it’s simply that the more dense the residential and industrial and commercial areas get, the more pollution there is. And it’s not good for us. How this translates to politics is beyond me. To me, its’ just making people aware. Did you know that OC now has a denser population per square mile than L.A.? It sucks. I remember when OC was so quaintly rural compared to LA when I moved down here in the 60′s with my mom. Eucalyptus and orange groves, minimal traffic. Well, here we are now. It still beats LA, but air quality is getting bad everywhere. We should be aware of the facts and find ways to minimize it (bad air quality) without it turning into a political thing.
Atwood states that Control Components in Rancho Santa Margarita closed in 1991. This is not true. They moved to rancho in 1987 and are still in business. But emissions contributing to high cancer risk? They make valves.