Air pollution from Ports a high cancer risk

Pollution risk twelve hundred (1,200) times cancer risk standard
[Update #2 (1/25/09] I initially posted on this topic on April 9, 2008 and again on September 5, 2008. Today, after almost a year, the Bergen Record finally got around to covering the story, but somehow managed to let DEP off the hook by focus on the Port Authority:
N.J. pushing for restrictions on diesel trucks at ports
http://www.northjersey.com/environment/NJ_pushing_for_restrictions_on_diesel_trucks_at_ports.html
[Update (1/2/09): here is an excellent article that dicusses the national picture of health and environmental threats from ports:Boatloads of Trouble: How We Are Importing Our Way to Destruction
http://www.alternet.org/healthwellness/97496/
The NJ Clean Air Council recently released the public hearing transcript and their recommendations on controlling air pollution from our ports. We wrote about the Council’s April 9, 2008 public hearing on “Improving Air Quality at our Ports and Airports” here:
Experts and Advocates: Pollution from Ports A High Cancer Risk to Urban NJ
http://blog.nj.com/njv_bill_wolfe/2008/04/experts_and_advocates_pollutio.html
Here is a link to the Council’s full report and hearing transcript.
IMPROVING AIR QUALITY AT OUR PORTS & AIRPORTS
Setting an Agenda for a Cleaner Future
http://www.nj.gov/dep/cleanair/hearings/2008hearing_report.pdf
I urge people to read this Report and compare the NJ Clean Air Council’s recommendations with the California program.
To highlight the significance of this issue, check out the below excerpt of testimony from the California South Coast Air Quality Management District scientist. This is something you won’t hear from DEP or the NJ Clean Air Council.
The public also is not aware of the fact that NJ lacks enforceable cancer risk regulatory standards for air pollution sources. But water and toxic sites cleanup soil standards are based on cancer risk and regulated by DEP based on a one in a million risk standard (for individual lifetime excess cancer risk.)
“In terms of toxics, however, the picture geographically is quite different. A monitoring study the South Coast Air Quality conducted a few years ago, which estimated cancer risks over our region. If we include diesel, we have a very different picture. The average cancer risks in our area are approximately one thousand two hundred in a million is from air toxics. We consider that very significant. Air quality district rules prohibit stationary sources from emitting toxics creating risk in excess of ten in a million for new sources and twenty-five in a million for existing sources so twelve hundred in a million average over the area is considered very high.”
Source: Report @ page 14
Some questions that arise out of this Report:
1. Why isn’t the public warned and provided information about what NJ’s cancer risks are from NJ air and sea ports?
2. Does NJ have as strong a monitoring and regulatory program to control and reduce port emissions as California? If not, why not?
3. Why aren’t air pollution cancer health risks regulated to the same health standard as water and soil? (i.e. one in a million risk)
4. Why is air quality modeling and health risk assessment voluntary for permits issued to major air polluters in NJ?
Here is a link to NJ DEP’s Air Toxics page for addition information related to these issues:
http://www.state.nj.us/dep/airmon/airtoxics/
California Program info:
Plan May Ease Air Pollution at Ports
http://articles.latimes.com/2006/jul/06/local/me-ships6
South Coast District Air Quality Management Plan
“The combined Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach including sources such as oceangoing vessels, harbor craft, trains, trucks, and cargo handling equipment represent the largest single source of emissions in the Basin, accounting for 60% of SOx, 27% of NOx, and 6% of PM2.5 in 2023.”
[…]
FUNDING AVAIABILITY
The overall costs of implementing the control measures proposed in the Final 2007 AQMP are in the billions of dollars. In-use mobile source fleet modernizations, accelerated retirement of high-emitting vehicles and equipment, alternative fuels and their infrastructure, advanced retrofits, facility modernization, and product reformulations and replacements are among strategies which require significant levels of funding. For illustration purposes, the estimated costs associated with the recently released San Pedro Bay Port’s Draft Clean Air Action Plan and CARB’s Goods Movement Plan targeting ports and goods movement sectors alone are approximately $2 billion dollars and $10 billion dollars, respectively. The costs of implementing the AQMP control measures affecting virtually all source categories in the Basin will add to these estimates. However, the economic values of avoiding adverse health effects are projected to be many times higher than the implementation cost of clean air strategies.
http://www.aqmd.gov/aqmp/07aqmp/aqmp/Executive_Summary.pdf
Full SCAQMD Plan:
http://www.aqmd.gov/aqmp/07aqmp/index.html
EPA Region 9 Progress Report:
http://www.epa.gov/region09/annualreport/05/air.html
Children’s Health
http://134.67.99.14/ncer/childrenscenters/outreach_docs/breath_of_air_trans3.html
Marine Diesel lawsuit
http://www.earthjustice.org/our_work/cases/2007/marine-diesel-emissions.html