[CPEO-MEF] California's toxic air

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

State's Air Is Among Nation's Most Toxic
Only New York has a higher risk of cancer caused by airborne chemicals, 
the EPA says.

By Marla Cone
Los Angeles Times
March 22, 2006

Despite two decades of cleaning up carcinogenic fumes from cars and 
factories, Californians are breathing some of the most toxic air in the 
nation, with residents of Los Angeles and Orange counties exposed to a 
cancer risk about twice the national average.

A nationwide, county-by-county snapshot of the cancer threat posed by 
air pollution provides a troubling portrait of California, revealing 
that many potent chemicals still pose an excessive risk.

New York tops the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's list, followed 
closely by California, while rural residents of Wyoming, South Dakota 
and Montana have the least chance of contracting cancer from breathing 
the air.

One in every 15,000 Californians - or 66 per million - is at risk of 
contracting cancer from breathing the air over his or her lifetime, 
according to the EPA's National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment, which was 
released in February and based on emissions of 177 chemicals in 1999, 
the most recent data available.

...

In 1999, Sacramento County had California's highest cancer risk - and 
among the nation's highest - from air pollution, with 135 cancers per 
million residents, according to the EPA assessment. But the risk has 
dropped by two-thirds since one company — Aerojet, a space and defense 
contractor in Rancho Cordova - stopped emitting hydrazine by switching 
from liquid rocket fuel to solid.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-cancer22mar22,0,7938985.story?coll=la-home-headlines

--
Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org


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