People living in Marion and Lake counties in Indiana face greater risk of developing cancers due to environmental pollution, the US Environmental Protection Agency's (EPA) National Air Toxics Assessment has found.
The assessment, which took into account the presence of 133 carcinogenic chemicals in the air in 1999, estimated the lifetime cancer risks in states and counties and found that industrialized areas like Marion and Lake in the state were the worst by far.
The risk was calculated by way of estimating how many extra cancer cases would be noted if one million people were exposed to the air in different areas for 24 hours a day in 70 years.
“Today's data from EPA shows that diesel exhaust poses a greater risk of cancer than all the other air toxics EPA tracks combined, yet nearly all 13 million diesel engines in use in the US lack emissions controls,” said Dr Bruce Hill, of EPA's Clean Air Task Force.
In Indiana, the average risk was found to be 33 per million, as against the 1 to 25 per million that was noted for the United States. While Marion County had the average risk of 51 per million, Lake County showed a shockingly high average risk of 64 a million. What was more upsetting was that one of the Lake County area showed a risk of 499 per million.
Among other states that were dangerously high on air pollution were Illinois, California, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Oregon, Washington, Louisiana, New Jersey, Maryland, Arizona, Texas, Wisconsin, Ohio, and parts of Florida.
“The EPA data (shows that) we are exposing a large fraction of the American population to levels of various pollutants that exceed acceptable thresholds, and re-emphasizes that there really needs to be careful public discussion and debate on this issue,” said Dr Stephen Jay of the Indiana University School of Medicine.
The data called for stricter pollution controls in industrialized areas, especially those that showed abnormally high cancer risk per million. “The single most important step in reducing cancer risk from air toxics is to reduce diesel exhaust, and today's retrofit technologies can reduce particulate matter exhaust from many diesel engines by up to 90 per cent. Congress should act this year to fully fund the 'Diesel Emissions Reductions Act' so that we can begin now to clean up America's dirty diesels,” Dr Hill added.
One of the biggest killers floating around in Indiana's air was found to be arsenic. However, John Chavez of Indianapolis' office of environmental services, said that the findings were surprising considering that most factories emitting arsenic in the area stuck to the maximum emission limit. He added that the environment officials would check for sources other than metal factories that might be contributing to the high levels of the pollutant.
Indiana Department of Environmental Management director Tom Easterly agreed that steps have to be taken to minimize the residents' risk of cancer. “We don't want people to be exposed to unnecessary risk. We want to see what kinds of sources they were, if they really were emitting and, if they are, what can we do about it,” he said.
Meanwhile, EPA's assistant administrator for Air and Radiation Bill Wehrum said that the data would be used to being down pollution all over United States. “Since 1990, we've significantly cut toxic emissions and risks in the United States. This tool will help EPA and states refine our understanding and approaches to further reduce air toxics,” he said.
