Public Health & Air Toxics

Air pollution, especially in California, is a serious threat to public health. In addition to causing lung damage, toxic pollutants are known to damage the human reproductive, nervous, and immune systems. Prolonged exposure to toxic pollutants can cause cancer and premature death: according to one study, air pollution kills thousands of people in California every year. The Coalition for Clean Air works to educate Californians about the dangers of toxic chemicals, advocates for tougher regulation, and promotes nontoxic alternatives. Our recent work has focused on phasing out the use of the toxic chemical perchloroethylene, used in dry cleaning.

What are air toxics?

Toxic air pollutants are substances in the air that are known or suspected to cause serious health problems. Although air toxics sometimes originate from natural sources, the majority of toxic air pollutants come from human sources, such as diesel trucks and buses and other motor vehicles, industry and oil refineries, small businesses and pesticides. Toxic air pollutants include heavy metals (like mercury and lead), volatile chemicals (like benzene), combustion byproducts (like dioxin), and solvents (like carbon tetrachloride and methylene chloride).

Health risks for children

For children, dirty air is an even bigger problem because kids are more susceptible to the health effects of air pollution than adults.

Unlike adults, a child’s organs – including the brain, lungs and reproductive system - are in a constant state of development and do not reach full maturation until well past puberty. Due to their bodies’ immaturity, kid’s bodies are much less capable of defending themselves from airborne and toxic pollutants that can penetrate deep into their respiratory tract and other vital organs.

Children also breathe more air per pound of body weight at a rate of 2 – 3 times that of an adult. Due to this greater breathing rate, a child’s lungs receive a greater dose of air pollution than adults. Children also have a tendency to breathe through their mouths rather than their noses – because their nasal passages are restricted due to immaturity. Mouth breathing results in an increased deposit of small particles of pollution into the deepest regions of the lungs – where it can do the most damage!

One telling USC study showed that the lung capacity growth of children in smoggier communities was stunted by ten percent as compared to their counterparts in areas with better air quality. Children in urban industrial areas, where there are higher concentrations of air toxics, are also far more likely to suffer from asthma than kids in the suburbs.

Asthma

Asthma is a serious and potentially life threatening illness. Asthma now causes more pediatric hospitalizations than any other chronic disease. One out of every six children in Fresno County has this lung disease that makes them wheeze and can lead to pneumonia, and even death. 2.3 million Californians suffer from the debilitating disease – almost twice the national average.

During an asthma attack, a child’s airways swell and tighten. Air trying to get into their lungs backs up, as the carbon dioxide that needs to get out can't escape through swollen and congested air passages. Bands of muscles squeeze their airways. The pressure blocks air from reaching millions of tiny air sacs in the lungs, where oxygen is exchanged for carbon dioxide through cell walls. The effort kids must expend to breathe can be equated to sucking air through a straw – with their nose clamped shut – while running on a treadmill. An asthma attack feels, "like someone is crushing the sides of me. Like my heart is on fire every time I try to breathe," said one child.

Along with the difficulty and pain for kids, asthma attacks are expensive. They can lead to late-night emergency room visits and expensive doctor bills. Families often have to set up an entire support structures to deal with a disease that takes an enormous amount of resources. And medicines are expensive – often more than $200 every month..

Issues of environmental justice

Pollution levels are particularly bad in low-income and communities of color. These communities are often located next to busy freeways, large industrial enterprises, including petroleum refineries and power plants. Just as worrisome, though, and not yet fully accounted for, are the countless smaller "point sources," small operations like dry cleaners or auto body shops that release toxic chemicals into the air. Each of these operations may not have a measurable impact on the area as a whole, but to the people in the houses or schools next door or just down the block, such an operation can pose terrible health risks.

Residents of all communities often lack the information about the volume or type of pollution facilities in their communities are emitting. People often lack specific information on what they can do to reduce emissions from a single facility or how they can work with other communities to support stronger pollution standards and funding for low-polluting alternative technologies.

Toxic emissions on the increase

Unfortunately, over the last century our society has embraced thousands of toxic chemicals. Recent research results on the health impacts of these toxins have been alarming. Toxic air pollution is associated with increased risk for numerous forms of cancer, and serious damage to the human nervous, reproductive, and immune systems. Recent monitoring and analysis have found that levels of toxics in the air can pose health risks as high as 1400 additional cancer cases per million people and this is just from breathing the air!

Though California has made considerable progress in reducing smog, we have not made commensurate progress in reducing toxic emissions.

Our work for progress

For the last decade, the Coalition for Clean Air been working on the issue from a number of angles. We have educated Californians on the health hazards posed by diesel exhaust. We have advocated for tougher emission standards for diesel engines and promoted the use of much cleaner alternatives. We urged the ARB to establish the Neighborhood Assessment Program to monitor emissions in communities, identify significant sources of toxic air pollution, and take concrete steps to reduce or eliminate those toxic threats to public health.

We are leading the charge to transition our society away from the toxic chemical, perchloroethylene, used in dry cleaning. After several years of advocacy, the Coalition for Clean Air won an important victory for public health in December 2002 when the South Coast Air Quality Management District unanimously decided to phase out the use of perc in dry cleaning. With momentum from this groundbreaking rule, we worked with Assembly Member Alan Lowenthal to write legislation (AB 998) to phase out the use of perc statewide. The bill was signed into law, and beginning in 2004, the state will charge a fee for every gallon of perc used in dry cleaning; monies collected will support the transition of California dry cleaners to nontoxic alternatives. We continue to work to ensure its successful implementation. Read our report about perc and learn about our progress here. A list of cleaners currently using non-toxic methods can be found at the Occidental College website or at the AQMD site .

We are working with local organizations throughout California to aid them in their work combating local toxic pollution problems, and we are continuing our efforts to reduce diesel exhaust and other toxic emissions. Through our work, we have created some momentum among the public and within the government agencies responsible for protecting public health from these toxics. We cannot afford to lose the momentum that we have. We must keep the drumbeat going in the months ahead.