PUBLIC HEALTH
Bad air day Report details power plant dangers
BY CRYSTAL ZUZEK In an unpredictable economy, policymak- ers look to alternative energy sources to fuel the future. And as scientific research exposes the link between air pollution and disease, physicians seek ways to restrict the amount of toxins patients breathe. Robert Haley, MD, director of the Division of Epidemiology at The University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center at Dallas, lives in Northeast Texas, a region with three of the dirt- iest and oldest coal-fired power plants in the state. A report released earlier this year, Addressing Pol- lution from Legacy Coal Power Plants in Texas, ex- amines retrofitting the Big Brown, Martin Lake, and Monticello coal-fired fa- cilities with modern emis- sion controls or replacing them with cleaner alterna- tive energy sources. The Texas Medical Association, the Dallas County Medi- cal Society (DCMS), and Texas Business for Clean Air contributed money to help fund the report. Prepared by Daniel Co-
han, assistant professor of environmental engineer- ing at Rice University, the report targets 1970s-era coal-fired plants because they are “the leading emitters of air pollutants and greenhouse gases in Texas.” They heavily contribute to the formation of ground-level ozone and particulate matter, a mixture of sub- stances including carbon-based particles, dust, and acid aero- sols formed in the atmosphere by volatile organic compounds, sulfur dioxide, and nitrogen oxides. That’s a major health worry because a 2004 University of Southern California study shows particulate matter air pollu- tion leads to reduced lung capacity in teenagers who grow up
in areas with heavily polluted air. After tracking children living in Los Angeles communities with varying levels of pollution, researchers concluded the lung capacity of about 8 percent of 18-year-olds was less than 80 percent of normal. The incidence dropped to about 1.5 percent for those living in areas with the least air pollution.
“The concern is that people who live in areas of high air pollution may have reduced lung capacity for life and will be more susceptible to other diseases such as chronic cardiovascular and pul- monary diseases,” Dr. Haley said And, The Toxic Ten: Top Power Plant Emissions of Mercury, Toxic Metals, and Acid Gases in 2011, a re- port released this year by the Environmental Integrity Project, ranks Big Brown, Martin Lake, and Monticello among the top five emitters of mercury in the nation. To access the report, visit http://environmental
integrity.org/news_re ports/
01_03_2013.php. A study by researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio shows a sta- tistically significant rela-
MONTICELLO MARTIN LAKE
BIG BROWN •
• •
tionship between pounds of industrially released mercury and increased autism rates. Researchers looked at school district data from the Texas Education Agency and industrial mercury release data from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). For every 1,000 pounds of mercury released into the environ- ment, on average, the rate of special education services in- creased 43 percent, while the autism rate increased 2.6 per- cent. Community autism prevalence decreased by 1 percent to 2 percent every 10 miles from the pollution source.
June 2013 TEXAS MEDICINE 45
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60