Date: 27-Aug-00 16:16 EDT

Subject: Study says cancer risk is higher by airport

From: jack@areco.org (Jack Saporito)
JSaporito@aol.com

(ed. Note: Executive summary should be posted on AReCO's & US-CAWA's website sometime after today's (11/27/00) 11AM press conference.

Please also note: That AReCO requested a cancer study as mentioned in the article, from the Illinois Department of Health back in September, 1998. To date, we have received no study and repeated requests have gone unanswered.)

Study says cancer risk is higher by airport BY ROBERT MCCOPPIN Daily Herald Staff Writer 8/27/00

Air pollution from O'Hare International Airport raises cancer risks beyond acceptable levels for miles around the airfield, according to a study commissioned by neighboring suburbs. The study found that air toxins from planes at O'Hare raise cancer risks as much as 100 times beyond the federal target level of 1 in a million.

The analysis prompted calls for further monitoring of air pollution at O'Hare and was cited by suburban officials as more reason to oppose airport expansion.

"It's a very significant study," said Joe Karaganis, attorney for the Suburban O'Hare Commission, which opposes expansion at O'Hare. "It shows an extremely widespread area of health risk."

The higher risk affects 98 communities, including Des Plaines, Park Ridge, Mount Prospect, Arlington Heights, Elk Grove Village, Bensenville, Wood Dale, the North Shore and places as far away as North Chicago in Lake County.

The highest risk was in communities closest to the airport, and those to the north and east, due to prevailing winds from the south and west.

The study was done by environmental consultant Environ International Corp. of Arlington, Va., at the request of Park Ridge, Des Plaines, Itasca and Niles.

Using numbers from a prior study commissioned by the city of Chicago last year, Environ used what it called EPA-standardized models of wind dispersion to calculate risk.

A second study, conducted by consultant Mostardi-Platt Associates Inc. of Elmhurst, took air samples from around O'Hare.

That study found that O'Hare operations contribute to dust downwind.

A family of chemicals known as aldehydes, particularly including formaldehyde, a suspected carcinogen, were found at increased levels downwind.

The samples found 219 volatile compounds, including 78 at increased levels downwind from O'Hare.

Environ's analysis of that study made the following conclusions:

Hypothetical cancer risks over a 70-year lifetime associated with levels of air toxins at the O'Hare border are five times higher than cancer risks of background air quality in Naperville. Risk levels reached 100 cases in 1 million at the end of runways 27L and 27R, which aim roughly between Bensenville and Schiller Park.

The potential for non-cancer health problems at the airport's fence line were 23 times higher than background air in Naperville, a level which the federal EPA has classified as having "concern for potential health effects."

The chemicals that contribute most significantly to risks at the fence line, such as aldehydes, benzene and naphthalene, are commonly found in aircraft emissions.

The report also concluded that given the extra health risk O'Hare poses, it should not be expanded.

Chicago plans to expand the airport's terminals and gates, and in the past has drawn up proposals for new runways, but city officials maintain they have no current plans to add runways.

Sponsors of the study expected much debate over the analysis.

The new samples for the study all were taken in a day or less at seven locations in either Naperville, in Bensenville or at the edge of the airport. Some of the samples involved "grab" samples that took just seconds to collect.

The authors conceded that cancer risks are uncertain and that the study was "not meant to be exhaustive, nor rigorous," but to show that air pollution could be measured and attributed to O'Hare.

Yet the question of what level of toxic air compounds is "safe" is not easily defined. For a benchmark, the study's authors cited a court case in which the EPA established emission standards for benzene.

In that case, the EPA said it strives to ensure that most people face an added cancer risk of no greater than one in 1 million and to limit exposure for people living near a pollution source to one in 10,000.

Officials from the city of Chicago could not comment on the report in detail because it was not due to be released publicly until today.

But they stood by their own test of air quality, done by a consultant last year, which concluded that O'Hare contributed very little to air pollution in the area, compared to cars, industry and even home furnaces.

"We still stand by our study," O'Hare spokeswoman Monique Bond said. "O'Hare contributes only a very small percentage of air toxics around the airport.

"Certainly, the impacts that may be felt by individuals are taken seriously, but our studies don't indicate that O'Hare is the primary cause of that pollution," she said.

O'Hare opponents fear the airport's expansion program will increase the number of flights, but Bond maintained it will decrease emissions by making ground traffic more efficient and reducing airplane idling time.

Air field officials also are experimenting with alternative energy to power ground equipment.

"We're being very proactive," Bond said. "It's one of our commitments as a partner in the community."

The Illinois Department of Public Health has the job of assessing cancer risk for the state, but spokesman Tom Schafer said the agency takes a different approach.

Rather the extrapolating risk from a known quantity of pollutant, health officials look at the actual number of cancer cases in an area, but they have not done a specific study of O'Hare.

"We deal in hard data, not projections," Schafer said. "I'm not sure how we would do that."

While noting that normal cancer rates would result in thousands of cancer cases in the Chicago area with or without O'Hare, Schafer said the agency would look at the study, if asked by elected officials.

Officials at the U.S. and Illinois environmental protection agencies had not seen the report and declined to comment.

Regulators consider planes a mobile source of pollution, which is not covered specifically by the Clean Air Act.

But sponsors of the study are hoping state and federal regulators will respond to the study's findings.

Some elected officials, such as Rep. Henry Hyde, have been asking for the state and federal EPA to take action on O'Hare for years.

"The regulatory people have looked the other way on this issue," Karaganis said. "This report shows a very serious health concern. It's a very strong signal for them that they've been ignoring a very serious problem."

In June, the state EPA, after previously opposing such research, began a study of air quality around O'Hare that is scheduled to be completed by the end of this year, with preliminary results due out next month.

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