In what could prove a significant move for communities facing air pollution, the Environmental Protection Agency proposed on Thursday that chemical plants nationwide measure certain hazardous compounds that cross beyond their property lines and reduce them when they are too high.

The proposed rules would reduce cancer risk and other exposure for communities that live close to harmful emitters, the EPA said. The data would be made public and the results would force companies to fix problems that increase emissions.

“This is probably the most significant rule I’m experiencing in my 30 years of working in cancer alley,” said Beverly Wright executive director of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice and member of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council. She referred to an area dense with petrochemical development along the Gulf coast.

In the past, Wright said, even when emissions caused harm, residents weren’t able to sue and reduce the threat.

The proposed measure is also intended to address short-term emissions spikes when plants start up, shut down and malfunction. If the proposal is finalized, it would impact roughly 200 chemical plants, the agency said.

Fence line monitoring has long been a priority of the environmental justice movement and a number of refinery communities have won it in recent years. This measure would extend some of those changes nationwide.

EPA Administrator Michael Regan announced the plan in St. John the Baptist Parish, Louisiana, home to the Denka chemical plant, which makes synthetic rubber and emits chloroprene, listed as a carcinogen in California. Denka is less than a half mile from an elementary school and has been targeted by federal officials for allegedly increasing the cancer risk for the nearby, majority-Black community.

“For generations, our most vulnerable communities have unjustly borne the burden of breathing unsafe, polluted air,” Regan said.

A spokesperson for Denka said it is waiting to review the proposed language before commenting. Data show the plant has drastically reduced its emissions over time and it already conducts fence line monitoring. In documents, however, EPA said the plant remains a danger to those who live nearby.

The changes also focus on manufacturers of ethylene oxide, which is commonly used in medical sterilization plants. Long-term exposure to that chemcial can increase the risk of lymphoma and breast cancer. The agency plans to issue proposed regulations for medical sterilization plants in the near future.

According to the agency, the proposal would slash ethylene oxide emissions nationwide by about two-thirds and chloroprene by three-quarters from 2020 levels. Emissions that worsen smog would be reduced as well.

The American Chemistry Council said industry emissions have declined over the last decade. It is concerned about the EPA’s proposal for reducing ethylene oxide, and says it is based on a faulty EPA risk assessment.

“Overly conservative regulations on ethylene oxide could threaten access to products ranging from electric vehicle batteries to sterilized medical equipment,” said council spokesman Tom Flanagin, adding that the EPA may be rushing its work on significant regulations.

Regan visited this same parish in 2021 on a five-day trip from Mississippi to Texas to highlight low-income and mostly minority communities harmed by industrial pollution.

Then last year, the EPA said it had evidence that Black residents face an increased cancer risk from the Denka chemical plant and state officials were allowing pollution to remain too high. The agency’s letter was part of an investigation under the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which says anyone who received federal funds cannot discriminate based on race or national origin.

Next, federal officials sued Denka in February, demanding it cut its emissions. Now, they’ve proposed tighter regulations on chemical plants.

“This is a day to celebrate,” Wright said.

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By Columbia Mailman School of Public Health

COVID-19 is changing household behaviors related to how we are exposed to various household chemicals linked to poor health outcomes. People surveyed earlier in the pandemic were using less personal care products but more household cleaners, eating less fast food and restaurant food but more ultra-processed food. These changes which occurred since the pandemic onset are also linked to pandemic-related traumatic stress, which itself may worsen health outcomes.

Researchers at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health along with partners from Dartmouth College, as part of the Environmental influences on Child Health Outcomes (ECHO) consortium, analyzed responses to a survey from 1,535 adults in six states. Results are published in the journal PLOS ONE.

Personal care products. Overall, participants reported using fewer personal care products, including hair products (perms or relaxers, hair dye, hair sprays, hair gels) and makeup/body products (nail polish, make-up, perfume, lotion) since the start of the pandemic. Participants who experienced more pandemic-related traumatic stress were more likely to report using fewer hair products and cosmetics. Approximately half of all respondents reported using more liquid soaps (52%) and antibacterial soaps (48%) and 81 percent of respondents reported using more hand sanitizer gels. The use of all three products was associated with pandemic-related traumatic stress symptoms.

Household cleansers. Two-thirds of respondents reported using more antibacterial cleaners and 54 percent reported using more bleach-containing cleaning products—changes made more likely among those experiencing more pandemic-related traumatic stress.

Food-related behaviors. Nearly half (49%) of respondents said they eat more home-cooked meals because of the pandemic. One-third (34%) of respondents reported eating less fast food since the start of the pandemic. Both of these behavior changes were more common among those with more symptoms of pandemic-related traumatic stress. In all, 12 percent reported eating more ultra-processed foods, and 24 percent reported eating less processed foods, with the latter more likely among those with symptoms of pandemic-related traumatic stress.

THE UPSHOT

While the study did not include measurements of environmental exposures, the researchers say that the scientific literature suggests that these behavior changes likely reflect changes in their exposures to environmental chemicals. They also likely reflect changes—both good and bad—to health outcomes linked to these chemicals.

“We can infer that some behaviors like less consumption of fast foods and less use of personal care products might lower exposures to some phthalates and phenols, while greater use of personal and household cleansers may be associated with higher exposure to quaternary ammonium compounds and glycol ethers; and more frequent consumption of ultra-processed food could increase exposure to phthalates and phenols,” says lead author Julie Herbstman, PhD, director of the Columbia Center for Children’s Environmental Health (CCCEH) and professor of environmental health sciences.

Phthalates are linked asthma, attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder, breast cancer, obesity and type II diabetes and neurodevelopmental and behavioral issues. Phenols like BPA are linked to reproductive dysfunction, reduced birth size, cognitive and/or behavior outcomes, asthma, and obesity. Quaternary ammonium compounds are skin irritants and can also lead to asthma exacerbations. Exposure to glycol ethers may also irritate skin, eyes, nose, and throat and may also lead to anemia and/or adverse reproductive outcomes like birth defects.  

A ROADMAP TO INTERVENTIONS

The study identifies several factors that make some of these behavior changes more likely, including symptoms of pandemic-related traumatic stress and living in a household where someone tested positive for COVID-19, as well as race/ethnicity. Going forward, the researchers plan to repeat their analysis, adding a biological measure of chemical exposures to assess whether the trends in pandemic-related behavior change reported here do, in fact, result in shifts in exposures measured through biomarkers of internal dose. They also say it is important to continue to monitor pandemic-related behavior change as pandemic severity waxes and wanes.

The researchers say their study could lead to an intervention to reduce exposure to harmful environmental chemicals.

“Interventions and campaigns targeting the reduction of environmental exposures, pandemic-related traumatic stress, as well as those that facilitate behavior change can help improve health outcomes that are indirectly related to the pandemic,” says Herbstman.

The study’s senior authors are Frederica Perera, director of the translational research program at CCCEH and professor of environmental health sciences at Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, and Margaret R. Karagas, professor and chair of epidemiology at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. A full list of co-authors is available in the journal article.

Funding for the research was provided by grants from the National Institutes of Heath (U2COD023375, U24OD023382, U24OD023382, U24OD023319, UH3OD023290, UH3OD023275, UH3OD023272, UH3OD023271, UH3OD023313).

The authors declare no conflicts.

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