Air Quality
Air Pollution in Anchorage
Alaska has surprisingly high levels of toxic air pollutants
given our small population and large land base.
Ambient benzene levels in Anchorage exceed minimum risk levels established
by the Federal Agency
for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Alaska's crude oil and refined gasoline both contain high
levels of cancer-causing benzene. Alaska is not required to sell less toxic reformulated
gasoline because we do not violate national ozone standards.
Alaska's
diesel is many times more toxic than diesel sold in the rest
of the nation, largely because the state was exempt from federal
standards in the 1990’s that reduced sulfur levels in
the fuel. Higher sulfur levels raise production of toxic soots at
the tailpipe that are associated with increased cancer, upper
respiratory disease, asthma and even death.
Now,
a new round of diesel clean up is underway across the nation,
and Alaska has agreed that its railbelt communities will meet
the new federal standard.
This however leaves Alaska’s villages at risk from
“dirty diesel” that currently can measure up to
2800 units of sulfur.
The national standard is 500 and new standards will drop
urban diesel to 15 units of sulfur by 2007.
Much of Alaska’s compliance is motivated by new
diesel engines that must have “ultra low sulfur diesel”
to function. If Alaska’s villages are exempt from this tighter
diesel standard, they will become dumping grounds for old, high
polluting diesel equipment and engines.
All Alaskans could benefit from compliance with the new
federal standard because even old diesel engines produce much
less toxic soot when fueled with low sulfur diesel fuel.
Even
something as common as dust causes health problems, especially
very fine dust from such sources as tires pulverizing road gravel. Published research in 1996 by Dr. Mary Ellen Gordian of
Anchorage showed increased asthma and upper respiratory diseases
as dust levels rise. Researchers
could not find a bottom threshold of dust levels below which
particle pollutants are healthy to breathe.
Clean
air advocates fear that the particle monitoring system under-represents
dust pollution. Monitors
at Anchorage's dustiest site were removed and not replaced. There are other dusty locations, especially
along roads, that are not monitored.
Similarly,
the same study found a correlation between upper respiratory
infections and bronchitis and combustion particles.
State officials are just beginning to study these combustion
particles, but they are likely to include soots from diesel
and wood smoke, aerosols from gasoline engines and pollutants
from home heating systems.
Federal standards are not strict enough to protect health,
and regulators are considering tightening the health standards
for particles.
Particles
also obscure visibility.
Anchorage's nearby mountains are commonly obscured by
road dust in dry months and combustion particles in winter.
In
one success story, carbon monoxide levels are down significantly
from the early 1980’s.
This is probably due to a combination of pollution control
strategies and warmer, windier weather. It is also possible that “hot
spots” still threaten public health.
In 1998, a screening study found that one neighborhood
exceeded national health standards by twenty percent while the
fixed monitoring system registered levels within national standards. Since then, that neighborhood has
measured carbon monoxide levels within the national standards.
School Children Living Near Busy
Roads 250% More Likely to Have Asthma
Mary
Ellen Gordian, M.D. has found that local school children living
near busy roads are two and a half times more likely to have
asthma than children living farther away from traffic.
Furthermore, schools with lower income families are more
likely to have more asthmatic children.
The study controlled for typical factors including smoking
in the home and asthma diagnosis of parents.
Contact Dr. Gordian at the University of Alaska Institute
of Circumpolar Health 907 786 6569.
Northwest Collaborative Air
Priorities Partnership
The
Anchorage Citizens Coalition is a member of the Northwest Collaborative
Air Priorities Project, along with British Petroleum Company
and the U.S. Department of Defense.
The
project was founded in 2003 to bring together citizen, industry
and agency stakeholders to establish air quality priorities
for the Pacific Northwest United States and Canada and target
resources to resolve regional air quality issues.
Priorities
include
o
Reduce emissions from transportation,
especially diesel and carbon dioxide, and support land use planning
and alternate transportation as tools.
o
Reduce emissions from combustion,
including energy production, and residential, forestry, and
agricultural burning.
Support alternative energy sources
o
Reduce risks from air pollution
indoors, including: homes, offices, schools, and other buildings.
o
Increase support for education
and other means of encouraging the public to take actions to
reduce air pollution.
o
Reduce health risks from outdoor
toxic air pollutants, including identification of hot spots
and primary contributing sources of toxic emissions.
o
Reduce greenhouse gas emissions
causing climate change.
o
Reduce health risks from toxic
and other air pollution where people live, especially in minority,
low income, rural, and other under-represented communities.
o
Reduce risks to ecosystems,
tribal communities, and their cultural resources from toxic
and other air pollution sources.
http://yosemite.epa.gov/r10/homepage.nsf/NWCAPP/NWCAPP
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