The Most Detailed Map of Cancer-Causing Industrial Air Pollution In the US (propublica.org) 41
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Pro Publica: It's not a secret that industrial facilities emit hazardous air pollution. A new ProPublica analysis shows for the first time just how much toxic air pollution they emit -- and how much the chemicals they unleash could be elevating cancer risk in their communities. ProPublica's analysis of five years of modeled EPA data identified more than 1,000 toxic hot spots across the country and found that an estimated 250,000 people living in them may be exposed to levels of excess cancer risk that the EPA deems unacceptable.
The agency has long collected the information on which our analysis is based. Thousands of facilities nationwide that are considered large sources of toxic air pollution submit a report to the government each year on their chemical emissions. But the agency has never released this data in a way that allows the public to understand the risks of breathing the air where they live. Using the reports submitted between 2014 and 2018, we calculated the estimated excess cancer risk from industrial sources across the entire country and mapped it all. The EPA's threshold for an acceptable level of cancer risk is 1 in 10,000, meaning that of 10,000 people living in an area, there would likely be one additional case of cancer over a lifetime of exposure. But the agency has also said that ideally, Americans' added level of cancer risk from air pollution should be far lower, 1 in a million. Our map highlights areas where the additional cancer risk is greater than 1 in 100,000 -- 10 times lower than the EPA's threshold, but still high enough to be of concern, experts say. The map is interactive, allowing you to click on a hot spot to learn more about the industrial emissions there. You can also type in an address to find the increased estimated cancer risk at that location.
The agency has long collected the information on which our analysis is based. Thousands of facilities nationwide that are considered large sources of toxic air pollution submit a report to the government each year on their chemical emissions. But the agency has never released this data in a way that allows the public to understand the risks of breathing the air where they live. Using the reports submitted between 2014 and 2018, we calculated the estimated excess cancer risk from industrial sources across the entire country and mapped it all. The EPA's threshold for an acceptable level of cancer risk is 1 in 10,000, meaning that of 10,000 people living in an area, there would likely be one additional case of cancer over a lifetime of exposure. But the agency has also said that ideally, Americans' added level of cancer risk from air pollution should be far lower, 1 in a million. Our map highlights areas where the additional cancer risk is greater than 1 in 100,000 -- 10 times lower than the EPA's threshold, but still high enough to be of concern, experts say. The map is interactive, allowing you to click on a hot spot to learn more about the industrial emissions there. You can also type in an address to find the increased estimated cancer risk at that location.
Re:Cigarettes (Score:5, Insightful)
Because governments can't actually ban things
Just ask your local drug dealer or weapons dealer (if it's not the same guy), the best you can do is regulate, track and make it unpopular, which is actually working quite well with cigarettes.
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They did a good job with Oxycontin. Such a good job, those pill users have moved onto various white powders believed to be heroin.
This is the real opioid crisis (and the result of a typical government "we must do something" solution). The fact is that chronic pain sufferers, who were prescribed opioids, very rarely ODed, while recreational users were more often than not ODing on non-prescribed medications. Now, chronic pain sufferers cannot get the medications they need to make their pain manageable (and live semi normal lives), and have begun to turn to illegal drugs for pain management (and are consequently dying BECAUSE of it). A
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Because governments can't actually ban things
People locked up behind bars for the consumption of recreational drugs may disagree with you. Governments ban things all the time.
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Yet it's still a massive unregulated, untracked market.
Drugs still exist and on an absurd quantity despite their best efforts and scare tactics.
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we have banned children from having them.
adults are expected to work it out for themselves. but as more data comes in on second hand smoke, the government may eventually take the option away from adults.
Re: Cigarettes (Score:2)
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It's politically easier to regulate something new than something hundreds of years old.
There are fewer health risks to vaping than traditional smoking, so the risk from second hand vape is also lower. You still can find nicotine in people's hair and blood if they've been indoors near someone vaping. But nicotine is not really that big of a deal in such miniscule amounts for most people.
A lack of regulation combine with unscrupulous vape juice sellers did lead to several newsworthy injuries. This turned the
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Children still can have it if they want and there's no way the government could stop em from doing so.
But they don't want it, it's not a product of mass appeal among children, so there's no shady school cigar dealers.
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I fail to follow the reason of your argument. Murder is illegal but people still do that too.
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Well, in many countries they are at least banned in many places where the smoker would actively hurt others with their smoking. You no longer have to be exposed to cigarette smoke at work, restaurants, bars, trains/busses/planes, shopping centers, etc, etc.
Useful, if incomplete (Score:3, Interesting)
I am continually amazed by what stuff companies are allowed to release into the air (and our water). Recognized cancer-causing pollutants measured by the EPA are important but only a part of the picture. This is why I'm skeptical of the whole global warming thing -- carbon emissions are certainly of interest but the topic is used by many as a red herring to distract from much bigger problems. Your grandkids might not survive to experience global warming if their childhood home is pumped full of methyl bromide, PFOAs, heavy metal compounds, etc. It's a myth that these emissions are a thing of the past. Many continue to rise as the population increases and health officials and politicians look the other way or feign ignorance.
Re:Useful, if incomplete (Score:4, Informative)
I was expecting significantly less information or more blurred data, but from a few specific locations I know it is a pretty good indicator of “industrial” emissions.
It doesn’t cover things like airports or other non-point emissions, nor does it aggregate impacts of all Title-5 polluters (just the biggest ones). It also doesn’t cover agriculture and meat processing from what I could tell, which might not be direct cancer risks but are considered to be poor air quality.
I was surprised that coal power plants did not seem to be included.
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I see coal power plants on there. For example, this one [propublica.org].
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Surprised this does not include high traffic areas like freeways (re https://www.lung.org/clean-air... [lung.org]). Would love to see mapped combinations of known carcinogen risks.
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Your grandkids might not survive to experience global warming if their childhood home is pumped full of methyl bromide, PFOAs, heavy metal compounds, etc.
Unsurprising really, given humanity's desire to dig stuff out of the ground, ship those materials around the planet, and use it in everyday items. I'm talking oil & coal, metal ores, a variety of other minerals, sand / clay, materials for mixing concrete, etc, etc.
Some nasty stuff among that, some of that winds up in products, some of that winds up in air / food / the wall(s) of your house, and so on. Technology, coupled with regulation (& fines for those who skirt the law) can only do so much to
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Leafy greens do naturally have some heavy metals from the environment. And yeah, if that environment is contaminated, we all end up eating that contamination. Fact is that we're apex predators and can tolerate a certain level of bio-accumulation, but how much? Also, did you know that a cow that is diagnosed with frank lead poisoning and survives can still be sold as meat?
Strange (Score:4, Interesting)
I checked on the 1200 acre local company which tossed dioxin and methylene chloride by the hundreds of thousands of tons a year, and umm it wasn't on the map.
Note, there is a really nice neighborhood just downwind of the plant. I know I didn't want to live there...
It is only a map of air pollution, not all toxins (Score:3)
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They seem to assume still air
It's a map of emission sources, not bad air.
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You're not the only one. I checked on my old house, which in the 1960's was a gas station with underground tanks, and its not listed either. I checked another location where there used to be a chemical company, and again it was not listed on the map, but that was bad enough that you had to roll up your windows and turn off the a/c when driving by it.
I think ProPublica needs to start going after the groups that fund them.
Re:Strange (Score:4, Informative)
The source data they are looking at is current point emissions, so it won’t cover past airborne emissions or ambient pollution. They also seem to have only included the top polluters in an area and do not include high concentrations of smaller polluters.
Mashable (Score:5, Interesting)
35000 a year (Score:1, Interesting)
Why just cancer? (Score:2)
There's lots of modern day diseases and syndromes that could be caused by pollutants in the air, water or in our food. We really need to get more serious about this.
Re: Why just cancer? (Score:5, Insightful)
With many of the other syndromes, what we have is correlation. As the saying goes, correlation is not the same as causation. As such, its better to insist on cleaner air from the principle of all pollution should be avoided, rather than try to blame an unprovable link on a particular compound.
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That makes sense.
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Well, it's not like we don't know what's going on at a chemical level. Cancer is caused by damage to DNA. The rate of cellular reproduction is managed by many different genes. One gene speeds up division, another supreses that gene, another supreses that, others work in combination, etc. It's not a simple clean mechanism, but more of a random soup that shows how things randomly evolved over countless generations.
So for any particular cancer, they can do a DNA analysis of the cancer and of healthy cells
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And if my understanding is correct, the mRNA cancer vaccines in development are going to attack the particular mutations in individual cancers, but I'm extrapolating here, so I could be misunderstanding it.
Not really.
The vaccines basically work exactly the same way as the Corona vaccines. The vaccine "infects" your healthy cells. They start to produce the marker proteins that can be found on the surface of the cancer cells. As your body is suddenly flooded with "oops, what kind of protein is that? Where doe
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I think we're trying to say the same thing in different ways. In order to target the cancer cells, there has to be some difference on the outside of the cells. My assumption is that this difference is based on the mutations, so coding the mRNA based on the mutations will create proteins that are in the cancer cells and not in the healthy cells. If those proteins are on the outside of the cell where the immune system can see them, then it would work as a vaccine.
Of course, I'm not a cancer researcher, so
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We know when cells go apeshit and start multiplying. What we still do not have is an exact grasp of the trigger.
We still have a general grasp. Damage to tissue causes constant re-generation of cells. More replication, especially while exposed to the same agent that causes damage to tissue, will lead to mutations. Eventually, one of the mutations pops up that leads to unrestricted cell multiplication.
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Why waffle? (Score:1)
Then again, if this was just a hit piece against American industry meant to weaken our economy further until it collapses and we all live in a post-apocalyptic wasteland where toilet paper is worth killing for....then go ahead and leave it as is.
I always love trying to group political activity into the different categories - the people who have no idea that you CAN kill America with enough stupidity, the people that are perfectly aware o
You have to accept poisoning to keep a job? (Score:2)
Hang on, here, this means that the people working there have to accept poisons getting into their bodies, if they want to keep their job. There's just no way to work in those locations without health risks.
If it constitutes Freeedom to not have to accept your employer forcing you to take something into your body, which might do it some harm, statistically... jeez ...then American workers haven't had Freeeedom from tyranny since lots of work started involving chemicals five or six generations ago.