I durst not laugh, for fear of opening my lips and receiving the bad air. – Shakespeare in ”Julius Caesar”
Who`s laughing? We durst not even smile, not after having survived the scares about apples and grapes and then having been hit with front-page headlines like these:
”Illinois ranks 8th in toxic emission levels” (Chicago Tribune).
”Air Poisons Called Threat to Public” (New York Times).
”101.8 million are breathing unsafe air” (U.S.A. Today).
Those anxiety-producing headlines appeared on March 23, when newspapers across the country trumpeted articles about the potentially harmful effects of toxic pollutants in the nation`s air. Toxic, by the way, is a fancy word for poison.
This unwelcome and unfortunate information came from a report released by a congressional subcommittee that contained data collected from industry by the federal Environmental Protection Agency.
The report said that in 1987 private industry in this country emitted into the air more than 2.4 billion pounds of toxic pollutants, which sounds like a lot.
Indeed, if there`s that much horrible stuff floating around in the air, it seems a wonder that pedestrians aren`t keeling over on sidewalks or that designer gas masks won`t soon be the rage.
No matter what the quantity of pollutants, foul air is far more worrisome than tainted fruit. After all, you have a wide variety of choices about what you eat, but there are no known satisfactory alternatives to breathing.
Which raises some questions. Such as: What are you supposed to do if you`re an ordinary citizen-especially if you live in a big urban area where the air is significantly more blighted? Close the windows and stay indoors?
Buy a supply of those gauze masks that people with respiratory problems wear on smoggy days? Call a doctor every time you cough? Hold your breath as much as possible? Maybe even pack up and move to Wyoming?
Experts from both government agencies and private environmental groups say relax. There is cause for concern but not for panic. Yes, they say, there are serious health risks from toxic pollutants in the air, but the risks ought to be balanced with the normal, everyday risks of living. Driving a car, for example, is far more hazardous to your health than toxic air.
The experts also say that the nation`s air is generally cleaner than it was a decade ago and that there is much to be hopeful about. They say that we`re now getting the information we need to control the emissions of toxics and thus reduce risks to acceptable levels.
Because of a law passed in 1986, the experts say, ordinary citizens can now fight polluted air in their own communities in a much more effective way. This new law gives the public access to information about the toxic chemicals used and emitted into the air by local industries.
No Chicken Littles
So take a deep breath-but not too deep-and hear these experts out.
”If we shock people about apples and grapes and the air, at one point we have to put all this data into perspective,” says David Kee, director of the air and radiation division of the federal EPA for the six-state Midwestern region.
He`s ready to do that, and so are Will Flower, a spokesman for the state EPA, who has the perfect name for someone who works for an environmental agency; Kevin Greene, research director of Chicago`s Citizens for a Better Environment; and Tom O`Connor, director of the environmental and occupational health program of the Chicago Lung Association.
All four agree that toxic air is a major health problem that calls for immediate action.
”We shouldn`t sound like Chicken Little,” Flower says, ”because the sky is not falling. But you should know what`s in the sky that you`re breathing.”
”The reality is that compared to drinking water and toxic dump sites, toxic air is a more serious environmental risk,” Kee says.
”The public perception is that a toxic dump is a terrible risk, but breathing air in Chicago or any other urban area is perhaps 1,000 times riskier than living near a toxic dump-if your drinking water comes from a safe source.
”Still,” he went on, ”out of the 45 million people who live in the Midwest, there are maybe 10 cases of cancer related to toxic air each week. This is far less dangerous than driving a car; there are 2 chances in 100 that you will die in a car accident in your lifetime.” There are 45,000 traffic deaths in the U.S. each year.
One troubling fact is that what gets into the the air is far less regulated than what goes into the ground and water. ”There aren`t nearly as many controls with air as with water, landfills and sewage treatment,”
O`Connor says.
Thank goodness for that new law the experts are so enthusiastic about:
the Emergency Planning and Community Right to Know Act, which Congress passed three years ago in response to the disaster in Bhopal, India, when toxic emissions from a Union Carbide chemical plant killed more than 2,000 people.
The law requires manufacturing plants that have more than 10 employees and handle large amounts of any of 328 toxic chemicals designated by the EPA to report annually how much of said substances they are releasing into land, water, air, landfills, sewage treatment facilities or other locations.
These reports are available to the public.
The first major step toward attacking air pollution came in 1970 with the passage by Congress of the Clean Air Act. ”Since then, we`ve made progress in reducing the conventional pollutants in the air,” says CBE`s Greene.
”The pollutants we went after then were those that were pretty much visible to the naked eye,” says Flower of the state EPA. ”This was the stuff that poured out of smokestacks, the filth you could see.”
This group, called ”criteria pollutants,” consisted of sulphur dioxide, lead, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, ozone and particulate matter.
With the exception of ozone, the criteria pollutants have been greatly reduced. But ozone, which is a technical word for smog, is especially hard to control.
”All the other criteria pollutants come from identifiable sources,”
Flower says. ”But ozone is formed when hydrocarbons and nitrogen oxides react with each other under warm temperatures and bright sunlight.
”We have tried to reduce hydrocarbons. That`s the main reason we test 2.4 million cars in the state each year. Cars account for about 40 percent of hydrocarbons, industry for 40 percent and `area sources`-the neighborhood gas station, for example-20 percent.”
Some cities, of course, have more trouble with ozone than others. ”There were 178 days of unhealthy air quality in Los Angeles in 1988,” Flower says. ”In the Chicago area, we had 19. We realize ozone is still a problem and something has to be done, but it`s not the kind of critical problem here that it is in Los Angeles.”
An invisible foe
While there has been some success in battling the six conventional air pollutants, toxics pose a more difficult target. First, there are the numbers- 328 chemicals on the federal government`s master list, 158 of which have been identified so far in Illinois. Second, there`s an absence of data about long-term effects.
And third, there`s the nature of the foe. ”Going after air toxins is like fighting an invisible enemy,” Flower says. ”You can see dirty smoke, but you can`t see certain chemicals that could be making you ill.”
If the war against air toxins is the environmental issue of the `90s, as some experts believe, the congressional report that led to those March 23 headlines was a very loud opening salvo.
”The report,” Kee says, ”was calculated to get the public`s attention. The subcommittee lumped all the chemicals together regardless of their toxicity and the emissions were given in pounds rather than tons, which has a greater impact.”
Kee supports general regulations that would reduce all toxic emissions rather than impose specific standards for each of the 328 chemicals on the list.
”The EPA was supposed to set standards for all these chemicals,” he says. ”And 19 years after the Clean Air Act, we`ve only done seven. It`s difficult to take on these chemicals case by case.
”We should shift the burden to industry. We need a law that requires reasonable emission controls.”
O`Connor agrees. ”We acknowledge the difficulty of estimating the risks of each toxin.
”We do know a lot of these pollutants are dangerous enough to be reported. We don`t have much scientific data about the effects of long-term, low-level exposure. Our position is to take steps to limit emissions, which isn`t being done now. Too often we wait until there is a serious problem before we act.”
”We`re urging the state EPA to submit a list of toxic air pollutants to the state Pollution Control Board and propose regulations for controlling them,” says the CBE`s Greene.
”As citizens, we should obtain reports about companies that are emitting toxic pollutants in the air and then work with those companies to reduce emissions,” Greene says.
If you want to learn whether a specific industry in your community is emitting toxins and the amounts, write: Joe Goodner, Office of Chemical Safety, Illinois EPA, 2200 Churchill Rd., P.O. Box 19276, Springfield, Ill. 62794-9276.
”You should be as specific as possible,” Flower says. ”If you want all Cook County emissions, the copying cost would be more than $3,000. But there is no charge if the information you request is less than 100 pages. After that, it`s 25 cents a page.”
When you receive the information, Greene says, you should get in touch with a toxologist or someone who can interpret the figures.
The Right to Know Act also provides access to information about toxic material use and storage by specific companies. If you live in Chicago, you can write: Bill Puerfoy, Chicago Fire Department, 605 W. Armitage, Chicago Ill. 60614.
If you live in other parts of Cook County, write: John Hickey, Chief of Emergency Service, Sheriff`s Police Headquarters, 1401 S. Maybrook Drive, Maybrook, Il. 60153.
