In March 2009, I stumbled across a report on the internet published by USA Today called the Smokestack Effect. It was a ground breaking study that cross-referenced the federal Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) data with school sitings, ranking the schools at greatest risk of cancer and non-cancer health effects due to air toxic exposures. The… Read more »
Posts Categorized: air toxics
What is in our air?
Every day driving my daughters to school I pass eastbound over the Fremont Bridge. During many of these days as we are just about to exit onto Kerby, we have to pass through a dense dark gray “fog” created by the air emissions of a regulated polluter just below the bridge. Some days the fog… Read more »
Short Term Air Toxics Benchmarks
On June 30th 2010, when the public comment period closed for the state’s decision on new air toxics benchmarks for mercury, manganese and lead, Neighbors for Clean Air delivered over 500 signatures demanding DEQ address short term spikes in toxic air emissions from regulated polluters. Air Quality administrator, Andy Ginsburg met Neighbors for Clean Air… Read more »
EPA releases latest National Air Toxics Assessment
Yesterday, the Environmental Protection Agency issued its latest data on air pollution called the National Air Toxics Assessment or NATA. NATA is designed to provide estimates of the risk of cancer and other serious health effects from breathing (inhaling) air toxics in order to inform both national and more localized efforts to identify and prioritize… Read more »
Portland Air Toxics Solution Advisory Committee Mtg #8 recap
As the PATSAC process rounds the corner to its finish line stretch, the work of the committee is definitely getting more interesting. At the last two meetings, the quality of DEQ materials has been impressive, including the detailed PATS 2017 Pollutant Modeling Summary presented at the January 25th meeting, and from this last meeting, the… Read more »