Nearly 100 million in United States are breathing unhealthy levels of particles, says EPA

 July 1, 2004

By Chris Baltimore, Reuters

WASHINGTON — Almost 100 million people in 21 U.S. states breathe unhealthy levels of tiny particles spewed by coal-burning power plants, cars, and factories, the Environmental Protection Agency said this week.

Hundreds of scientific studies have found links between particulate air pollution -- at levels people are breathing today -- and respiratory problems, increased use of asthma medications, missed school days from respiratory illness, emergency room visits, strokes, heart problems and premature death.

EPA Administrator Mike Leavitt notified governors from mostly Eastern states plus California that 243 counties do not comply with an agency proposal to limit emissions of the extremely tiny particles. The particles, 28 times smaller than the width of a human hair, are linked to premature death from heart and lung disease, as well as chronic bronchitis and asthma.

Action on particulates, which Leavitt puts at the top of his air quality agenda, is the next regulatory step after the EPA designated them as a pollutant in 1997.

"There is nothing we can accomplish that will increase the health of our air more than decreasing concentrations of (particulate matter)," Leavitt told reporters.

The EPA action sets in motion a process where states must submit plans to reduce particulate emissions by early 2008, with compliance required in the 2010-2015 time frame. Partial attainment of the standards in 2010 could prevent 15,000 premature deaths, according to agency analysis.

Tiny particles come from a wide array of sources, ranging from cars and trucks to wood-burning stoves, forest fires, power plants, and factories. In Eastern states, the majority of the pollution comes from coal-burning power plants. In California, which has no coal facilities, most is from cars and trucks.

Environmentalists said EPA's rules won't lead to fast enough reductions in particulate emissions from the nation's 1,100 coal-burning power plants, the largest single source.

"EPA needs to take swift action to cut the dangerous pollution from power plant smokestacks or millions of Americans will be left gasping for clean air," said Vickie Patton, an attorney at Environmental Defense.

EPA's plan to cut utility emissions by 70 percent by 2015 will mark one of the most productive periods in U.S. air-quality improvements, Leavitt said.

"This is not about the air getting dirtier," Leavitt said. "It's about the air getting cleaner and our standards getting tougher."

There is no outright penalty for noncompliance, but states that fail to submit plans could lose federal transportation funds, Leavitt said.

State governors had asked EPA to designate 141 counties as noncompliant, far short of the 243 EPA named in a preliminary list it will finalize in November.

The EPA found noncompliant counties in the following states plus the District of Columbia: Alabama, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Georgia, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Maryland, Michigan, Missouri, Montana, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Virginia, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.

Do you know where your dust has been?

It’s an ill wind that blows no one good, especially if it carries toxins, bacteria, fungi, or heavy metals.

Scientists have known for more than a decade that fine and ultrafine particles in the air create haze and kill large numbers of humans. Fines and ultrafines are produced by fossil-fuel power plants, incinerators, cement kilns, and diesel engines, among other sources. As early as 1991, Dr. Joel Schwartz of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (now at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston) estimated that fine particles were killing 60,000 people each year in the U.S. That shocking estimate has since been confirmed and reconfirmed and is now widely accepted. Community death rates rise and fall nearly in lock-step with local changes in concentrations of tiny dust particles — even when concentrations of those particulates are just one-quarter of the federal limit for outdoor air. Fine particles are defined as those with a diameter of 10,000 nanometers (10 micrometers) or less. Ultrafines are 100 times smaller than fines.

Schwartz is now at the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston.

The dust that settles from the air onto desktops, beneath beds, and flows into lungs is viewed by many as nothing worse than a common annoyance. But, in recent years, dust has gone from being a benign nuisance to major health hazard, as scientists have discovered harmful chemicals, heavy metals, and microorganisms hitching a ride on the airborne particles.

Storms in places as distant as China and Africa have generated public attention with dust clouds that travel across oceans to North America, bringing with them living bacteria, fungi, heavy metals, and other pollutants.

Researchers at Arizona State University now say that dust generated in our own back yards could be equally dangerous.

Dust blowing from local industries and agricultural fields has the potential to carry cancer-causing pesticides and toxic heavy metals, says ASU geologist William Stefanov. Though the fine dirt that settles into homes across the Phoenix area may look harmless, chronic inhalation of contaminated dust could lead to increased risk for cancer or heavy metal poisoning, leaving Arizona residents to wonder: Do you know where your dust has been?

In collaboration with ASU geology Professor Philip Christensen and University of Pittsburgh geologist Mike Ramsey, Stefanov is using images taken from space to map the movement of dust in Arizona. The maps can then be used to determine areas where health risks are most likely, and where scientists should do additional monitoring. He presented the first results of this project at the spring meeting of the American Geophysical Union in Boston last week.

Stefanov uses images taken by Landsat 7, a satellite operated jointly by NASA and the United States Geological Survey, to identify the areas where winds are most likely to pick up dust, carry it through the air, and eventually drop it off. From the Landsat 7 pictures, Stefanov can differentiate native soil from urban areas, concrete, agriculture, and grass. After using remote sensing to categorize the land use types, Stefanov double-checks them from the ground or by using aerial photographs.

Areas with dry, exposed soil, such as industrial and agricultural areas, are the land use types most likely to produce dust. Cities, with their smooth, paved surfaces, are areas where dust gets blown through without settling. Vegetated, grassy areas, such as golf courses, cause the wind to slow down and deposit its dusty load.

”The biggest problem comes when there’s a large-scale disruption of the surface, like a construction project,” says Stefanov. “When the soil has been broken up, the fine material, where a lot of these pesticides and heavy metals might be, are free to be picked up by the wind.”

Frequent watering of the ground surface during construction helps to minimize transport of this dust. Agriculture and industry may contribute to the health dangers of dust by introducing toxic substances into the soil, Stefanov explains.

”Pesticides and herbicides can be applied for years in some areas, and that material doesn’t just disappear in the soil. It has a very long residence time.

Pesticides that were applied 20 years ago can still be there.”

The toxins adhere to the soil particles and are carried on the wind along with the dust. When the dust is inhaled, the pesticides and heavy metals are taken in, too.

Microorganisms such as fungi and bacteria also often take up residence in the soil and, when the earth is disturbed, get carried on the wind. Valley fever, an infection caused by a soil-borne fungus, is particularly common in the southwestern United States, especially during late summer, when soils are driest.

Airborne Particles

Published by: University Park Press
233 East Redwood Street
Baltimore, MD  21202

This book discusses the damage done by particles to people, animals, plants, and buildings.

Excerpts:

Alveolar Macrophage:

  

A component of the immune system that can engulf (phagocytize) inhaled microbes and particles deposited in the alveolar region of the lungs. These migratory cells kill cancer cells, remove particles from the lungs, and help the body resist  bacterial, fungal and viral diseases.

Health Note: Reduction of the alveolar macrophage population can result in infection and scarring by certain particulate matter and other airborne contaminants.

Respiratory Protection Note: Proper respiratory protection during exposure to mold and/or dust can protect the alveolar macrophage cells and help to avoid lung damage (scarring).

 

Cross-border pollution calls for global solution

February 17, 2004

Driven by jet streams, pollution can cross oceans in days and affect air quality on the other side of the world, experts say

Dirty air from Asia can easily hop the Pacific to pollute the western United States, experts say, calling for a global pollution solution.

Driven by jet streams, pollution from Asia can cross the ocean in days and have a dramatic effect on the quality of air on the US West Coast, environmental specialist Daniel Jaffe said at a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in Seattle.

The starkest effect of this trans-pollution, he said, was an increase in the levels of ozone and fine particulate matter, well above limits set by the US Environmental Protection Agency.

Asian pollution can cross the Pacific on winds fed by a low-pressure system over the Aleutian Islands, off south-western Alaska, and a high-pressure system near Hawaii.

The combination propels Asian air masses to the US West Coast on what experts call 'a high-speed conveyor belt'.

'It's gone from a geophysical curiosity to a point where we can now say that, 'yes, this occurs at large enough levels occasionally that it can affect our air quality',' said Mr. Jaffe.

International relations specialist Nives Dolsak said the pollution generated in one country increasingly impinged on neighboring nations and, in some cases, on countries thousands of kilometers away.

'There is no one magic solution to international environmental problems,' she said.

'I believe actions need to be taken at all of these levels.'

Ms. Dolsak pointed to the current collaboration between Japan, South Korea, the US and Canada to monitor pollution levels in China to predict when harmful pollution could impact on other countries and to alert the governments concerned.

She said Japan was the country worst affected by acid rain from China.

'Many of the same activities that produce global climate change also cause the pollution that's coming here,' she said.

'At the federal level, we have decided not to get involved in global climate change policy, but the states and cities are doing a lot.'

Ms. Dolsak said European countries had been working for years to limit the effects of the pollution of one country on its neighbors, but Europe was now increasingly facing the problem of transatlantic pollution from North America.

Accords between cities or regions on either side of the oceans might be an effective solution, she said.

'We probably don't have to go east to Washington DC before going west to Beijing,' she said.

'We have to explore what can be done at the sub-national level that has implications for the international community.'

9/11 – More Potential Deaths than During Actual Attacks

According to the UK Independent, which cited a new report by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, "Up to 400,000 New Yorkers breathed in the most toxic polluting cloud ever recorded after the twin towers were brought down three years ago, but no proper effort has been made to find out how their health has been affected." The report "provides the latest evidence of a systematic cover-up of the health toll from pollution after the 9/11 disaster, which doctors fear will cause more deaths than the attacks themselves." The Bush administration "suppressed evidence of increasing danger" and officially announced that the air around the felled buildings was "safe to breathe." Another report reveals that it has since "failed at least a dozen times to correct its assurances, even when it became clear that people were becoming sick." Just days after 9/11, the White House's Council of Environmental Quality – headed by a former asbestos industry lawyer-lobbyist – doctored EPA press releases to claim the air was safe to breathe. In fact, "Asbestos was found at 27 times acceptable levels" near Ground Zero. After that, the White House refused to immediately fund critical health screening tests for those exposed to toxic chemicals during the attack, instead waiting two-and-a-half years to address the situation.

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