Minorities suffer most from industrial pollution

The risks of exposure
Research over the past two decades has shown that short-term exposure to common air pollution worsens existing lung and heart disease and is linked to diseases like asthma, bronchitis and cancer. Long-term exposure increases the risks.

The Bush administration, which has tried to ease some Clean Air Act regulations, says its mission isn’t to alleviate pollution among specific racial or income groups but rather to protect everyone facing the highest risk.

“We’re going to get at those folks to make sure that they are going to be breathing clean air, and that’s regardless of their race, creed or color,” said Deputy EPA Administrator Marcus Peacock.

Peacock said industrial air pollution has declined significantly in the past 30 years as regulations and technology have improved. Since 1990, according to EPA, total annual emissions of 188 regulated toxins have declined by 36 percent.

Still, Peacock acknowledged, “there are risks, and I would assume some unacceptable risks, posed by industrial air pollution in some parts of the country.”

Government scientists and contractors spent millions of dollars creating the health risk measures. They’re based on air emission reports from industry, ratings of each chemical’s potential health dangers, the paths pollution takes as it spreads through neighborhoods, and the number of people of different ages and genders living near plants.

Data from 2000 used
The AP used EPA risk scores from 2000 so they would match the Census data and because it takes years for the government to get corrected emissions data. Some risks may have changed since then as factories opened or closed or their emissions changed. The risk scores aren’t meant to calculate a citizen’s precise odds of getting sick but rather to help compare communities and identify those in need of further attention.

Unhealthy air: Counties and sources Counties that had the highest potential health risk from industrial air pollution in 2000, according to an AP analysis of government records. The health risk varies from year to year based on the level of factory emissions, the opening of new plants and the closing of older plants. 1. Washington County, Ohio 2. Wood County, W.Va. 3. Muscatine County, Iowa 4. Leflore County, Miss. 5. Cowlitz County, Wash. 6. Henry County, Ind. 7. Tooele County, Utah 8. Scott County, Iowa 9. Gila County, Ariz. 10. Whiteside County, Ill. Factories whose emissions created the most potential health risk for residents in surrounding communities in 2000, according to an AP analysis of government records. 1. Eramet Marietta Inc., Marietta, Ohio 2. Titan Wheel Corp., Walcott, Iowa (closed in 2003) 3. Eastman Kodak Co., Rochester, N.Y. 4. American Minerals Inc., El Paso, Texas 5. F.W. Winter Inc., Camden, N.J. 6. Meridian Rail Corp., Cicero, Ill. 7. Carpenter Tech. Corp., Reading, Pa. 8. Longview Aluminum LLC, Longview, Wash. (closed in 2001) 9. DDE Louisville, Louisville, Ky. 10. Lincoln Electric Co., Cleveland Source: Associated Press

The scores also don’t include risks from other types of air pollution, such as automobile exhaust.

Altgeld Gardens, the housing project where Kevin Brown spent most of his childhood staying with his grandmother and going to school, is in a virtually all-black neighborhood where more than half the people live in poverty. The two-story project is nestled among the south Chicago steel mills, which for decades turned the night skies orange with pollution.

Most of those steel mills are now closed, victims of imports. But the area still retains enough industry to rank among the nation’s neighborhoods with the highest health risks.

Just across the Little Calumet River from Altgeld, the ISG Riverdale steel plant annually releases into the air tens of thousands of pounds of heavy metals like manganese, zinc, lead and nickel.

Dave Allen, a spokesman for Mittal Steel, which acquired the factory this year, said his company is committed to improvements.

“The environment is a matter of focus and pride for us and we hope to be good operators,” he said.

Mrs. Brown said the asthma attacks that hit Kevin, now 29, were most serious and frequent during the time he stayed in Altgeld Gardens.

“He may now get an attack maybe once a year, if that often, where he has to go to a hospital,” she said. “He was having them at one point quite frequently, at least two to three times a month.”

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