Air Toxics

The air toxics soup that urban residents breathe can only do harm, especially to children with weak pulmonary systems such as asthma.  Indiana has conducted air toxics monitoring in four urban areas in the State.  IKE would like to analyze the information and get the information to the community so that can understand it.  The preference is to use existing communication networks and get it on their agenda rather than create a new network.  But the work will be resource intensive.  And IKE lacks the resources to proceed.  IKE will continue to seek resource for the project.

Check out IDEM's excellent ToxWatch Website for the results of IDEM's air toxics monitoring work in the counties of Elkhart, Vanderburgh, Marion and Lake.  See also update on ToxWatch in IKE's April 2000 Newsletter.  Also visit the Environmental Defense Fund's outstanding Chemical Scorecard and IDEM's Toxics Release Inventory service.  See also article on TRI and Utilities in IKE's April 2000 Newsletter.

The following is derived from IKE's grant application for funding by EPA's Environmental Justice Through Pollution Prevention program.

Cyclohexyl isothiocyanate:  Like many chemical names, it sounds intimidating. But is it? While it is on the Toxic Substance Control Act Chemical Inventory, it has not been designated on any of the key environmental lists that identify a chemical as a chemical of concern. Unfortunately, these lists do not comprehensively address all hazardous chemicals. They focus on chemicals that are used in large enough quantities and have significant enough hazards to warrant evaluation for potential listing. Chemicals such as cyclohexyl isothiocyanate may not be listed simply because they are not commonly used.

Yet, a review of a material safety data sheet for the chemical provides additional insight. Cyclohexyl isothiocyanate can be extremely destructive to tissue of the mucous membranes and upper respiratory tract, eyes and skin in high concentrations. Structure-activity relationships suggest that it is a strong irritant to the respiratory system and eyes at very low concentrations. It is, after all, akin to methyl isocyanate, the chemical that caused so much harm in Bhopal, India. As a strong irritant, it can probably trigger severe asthma attacks in children as well. The information helps but it raises more questions than it answers.

Surprisingly, cyclohexyl isothiocyanate has been detected in the air that residents breathe in a low-income and people-of-color community in Indianapolis. It is also found in the air sampled in a residential community in Elkhart, Indiana. Elkhart is a hub of fiberglass reinforced plastics manufacturers and flexible foam blowing industries. The sources of the chemical are unknown. Preliminary research indicates that the chemical may be used in pesticides or as a cross-linking agent in plastics manufacturing. Since it is not regulated as a hazardous air pollutant, businesses may have used the chemical as a pollution prevention substitute for methylene diisocyanate or toluene diisocyanate, two crosslinking agents that are tightly regulated because of their hazards.

Fortunately, the concentrations are small, about 0.4 ppb. However, the chemical may be an eye and respiratory system irritant at those concentrations. And, since the chemical reacts with moisture in the air (and possibly in the sample), the concentration in the air that people breathe, perhaps in the neighborhood next door, may be much higher.

We end up with more questions with fewer answers. But asking those questions and seeking answers is a critical step to making sound environmental progress and bring about environmental justice. Ignorance is not a strategy that we can afford to endorse.

IDEM’s Air Toxics Monitoring Program:  Fortunately, the Indiana Department of Environmental Management does not accept the "ignorance as a strategy" approach. In October of 1998, IDEM took the bold step of designating four counties as warranting serious concern regarding air toxics and children’s health based on the large number of children in these counties and their proximity to significant sources of air toxics. The four counties are:

• Marion County - This central Indiana county essentially consists of the City of Indianapolis. The county contains a broad mix of industry, population, income levels typical of a large Midwestern city. Marion County is the most populous county in the state.
• Lake County - This county is located in the extreme northwest corner of the State. It is in the Chicago urban area and borders Lake Michigan. The north part of the county is dominated by large steel mills including the largest steel mill in the world. It also has one of the world’s largest inland refineries. The county contains large low-income and people-of-color communities. The county also has a more affluent southern part that is much less industrialized. It has had two air toxics monitoring sites in operation for many years. Lake County is the second most populous county in the state.
• Vanderburgh County - This county is located in southern Indiana near the Illinois border on the Ohio River. It has a broad mix of industries and populations typical of a river town. Because of the river access, several large manufacturing plants are in adjacent counties including one of the world’s largest primary aluminum smelters and a massive polycarbonate manufacturing plant. Two new manufacturing plants, an automobile assembly plant and a soybean processing plant, with large emissions of hazardous air pollutants were sited in nearby counties.
• Elkhart County - This county is located in north central Indiana along the Michigan border. The county is a hotbed of small entrepreneurs serving as the home for many small businesses. The recreational vehicle industry dominates the town. The fiber reinforced plastic manufacturing that is key to the industry is the most common operation. And these operations are flexible enough to set up shop quickly and easily. They are often interspersed in low-income neighborhoods. There are also several foam blowing operations. As a result of this industrial activity, Elkhart County is the #1 county in the state in Toxics Release Inventory releases and among the top five counties in the United States for releases of carcinogens and probable carcinogens.

Just four months after designating these counties, IDEM launched a two-year air toxics monitoring program for residents in those counties as part of its initiative to protect children from environmental threats. The goal of the program is to learn what is in the air that residents typically breathe with an emphasis on exposure to children.

Under the program, a 24-hour composite sample is taken from the air every six days from a "permanent" monitor. IDEM analyzes it in their own labs using a gas chromatograph coupled with a mass spectrometer. The permanent monitor is supplemented with three "neighborhood" monitors that will sample the air for a six-month period at some time during the two-year program. All of the monitors are located in residential areas, typically near community schools. The end result will be a broad look at the quality of the air that residents are likely to breathe. At the end of the two-year program, IDEM will evaluate whether to continue the monitoring.

Now, six months into the program, IDEM is generating massive amounts of data. They are developing an excellent website to present the data for 87 compounds that they have a standard for: 31 compounds identified as toxic organics and 56 organic compounds that are ozone precursors but are not believed to be toxic.

IDEM has made a strong commitment to working with the communities to get the information out in an understandable form and helping the communities understand it. And as part of its effort, IDEM invited IKE to its facilities. It was during this visit that IKE and IDEM staff noticed the large peak among the spikes that are generated by the mass spectrometer. This peak represented cyclohexyl isothiocyanate in the Marion County air sample. Without this close interaction and interrogation of the data, we might not have known about the presence of this chemical. There were other unidentified peaks as well possibly representing hundreds of other "unregulated" chemicals that may pose a threat to the community and, like cyclohexyl isothiocyanate, may not have made it to the monitoring list or the key environmental list - yet.

The Concept and the Need:  To its credit, IDEM has done an excellent job in pulling together the project without special funding from EPA or seeking additional funding from the legislature. They have made it happen with limited existing resources at a time where finding available staff is difficult. The program may not be as comprehensive as possible, but it provides an excellent beginning. By focusing on getting a quality sample, effectively analyzing it, and making the information available, IDEM is doing several critical parts of the project. Parts that only a state agency can effectively do.

Yet, more is needed. Putting information on the web will provide little assistance to low-income and people-of-color communities in those counties. They do not have easy access to the web and would have little reason to surf IDEM’s air toxics monitoring webpage if they did get access. Unfortunately, IDEM lacks the people and resources to develop networks in each of the counties to get the word out. And as a state agency providing the data to the community, it needs a third-party facilitator to serve as an intermediary that the low-income and people-of-color community can trust.

What is needed is a proactive system that effectively engages the community, especially leaders in low-income and people-of-color communities, in understanding and evaluating the monitoring data. The system must have three features:

1. Rely on existing networks in the community. It must not create a new network focused solely on air toxics. Instead, it needs to bring air toxics information into the community on their turf and in their forum whether that forum is the local church, the community center or the neighborhood association. For it to be sustainable, information about the environment needs to be woven into the existing fabric of the community - not be a separate cloth. And it needs to make the information available in manageable sizes and a format that can be understood.
2. Be interactive. The residents need to be able to ask questions and interrogate the data just as IKE did when it visited IDEM. They need to understand the chemicals of concern to the community, not just those that made it to a national monitoring list or ones for which IDEM could obtain a stable standard. Only through an ongoing interactive process with a third-party facilitator can residents get the information they need.
3. Engage the local health department and businesses. While the health departments in each of the counties have different strengths, they are all leaders in providing environmental assistance to the residents they serve. They need to participate in the project to provide the local resource - a resource that will be an ongoing source of information. In addition, local businesses need to be involved. Many of the air toxics may be coming from them. They need to be prepared to help the community to understand their use of the chemicals and the steps they take to reduce emissions. They also have special chemical expertise that can help the effort.

This project is designed to fill that need. Because of the grass roots nature of the work, their limited resources, and the need for an independent facilitator, IDEM can support the effort but cannot do it. IKE, with its blend of technical expertise and grass roots experience, is the organization to make it happen.

However, IKE cannot guarantee that the local network will be developed. IKE will plant the seeds, provide the technical support, facilitate communications, and develop funding requests to local foundations. But at a certain stage, the local community must adopt the project and make it happen. Because of the different characteristics of each of the four counties, this adoption is likely to take place in different ways. For instance, in Marion County, IKE is already supporting a community coalition that has developed to work on air toxics issues. And it has developed and submitted a grant request to the Indianapolis Foundation to support the project. By the end of the project, IKE will have several different models for other communities around the country to use and tremendous insights into the different methods to reach low-income or people-of-color communities. These models have the potential to benefit environmental justice efforts throughout the country.

As this project succeeds, the networks developed will be excellent forums to expand beyond air toxics monitoring information to include information developed from EPA’s new cumulative risk project and urban air toxics strategy.

Project Plan:  IKE will complete the project on three concurrent tracks.

• Create and facilitate an Air Toxics Advisory Council. This Advisory Council will oversee the project and provide guidance and support to IDEM regarding air toxics in the four counties of concern. In cooperation with IDEM, IKE will create the Council and facilitate the meetings. IDEM will be asked to chair the Council. The Council will include representatives of the following:
  • Indiana State Department of Health;
  • Low-income communities;
  • People-of-color communities;
  • Medical profession;
  • Citizen activists;
  • Local health departments;
  • University; and
  • Manufacturing.

In order to provide balance and perspective, most, but not all, of the representatives will be from the four counties covered by the air toxics monitoring program.

• Develop and support an air toxics communications strategy. With the guidance of the Air Toxics Advisory Council and in cooperation with IDEM, IKE will develop a communications strategy to get the results of the air toxics information to the community. This strategy will feature a system where IDEM will pro-actively e-mail or otherwise notify key community contacts, especially the health departments and the medical profession, in the appropriate county whenever a monitor gives a result that indicates a high or unusual reading for a chemical or class of chemicals. These triggers will address unusual spikes or increasing trends for the chemicals. The triggers will be set to respond to the 87 reported chemicals as well as "unknowns" that need more information.

IDEM will provide the notice shortly after the assay is completed, typically in less than two weeks. The proactive notice will indicate what the contacts should do with the information. Often the notice will simply be an advisory. Other times it will request that the contact consider recent events in the community to see if something has changed or check for potential sources of a chemical. In some cases, the notice will request that the contacts alert community leaders to a potential problem. Hopefully this notice will never be needed.

• Cultivate key local contacts and help them effectively work within existing local networks, especially in low-income and people-of-color communities. IKE will work in each of the four counties to develop key local contacts that express an interest in being a constructive part of the process and learning about air toxics. These local contacts will be drawn from community activists, environmental professionals, medical professionals, and the local health departments. They will be responsible for acting on the various notices from IDEM described above and for working with the existing local networks, with special emphasis in low-income and people-of-color communities. IKE will train them to understand air toxics issues and how to communicate these issues to the existing local networks in the communities. IKE will also give them presentation materials and other resources. Finally, IKE will help develop grant requests for funding through local community foundations.