Study links health problems in state with pollution

Published: June 10, 2004

Study links health problems in state with pollution

Section: Local
Edition: Five-star
Page: B2
Keywords: environment
health

J.J. STAMBAUGH, stambaugh@knews.com

Particle pollution kills more than 950 people and causes more than 20,900 asthma attacks in Tennessee annually, a study released Wednesday said. The report also suggested that 25 of every 100,000 Tennesseans are at risk of dying prematurely from exposure to coal-fired power plant pollutants. Only West Virginia and Kentucky, respectively, had higher per capita mortality rates.

Environmental advocates said the report shows the importance of curtailing emissions from automobiles and coal-fired power plants like those operated by the Tennessee Valley Authority.
Forcing the country's older power plants to use modern pollution controls would prevent many of the health problems caused by particle pollution, according to Valerie True of the Southern Alliance for Clean Energy.

True said that TVA, which operates 11 coal-fired power plants that burn between 40 and 44 million tons of coal each year, should step up its efforts to clean up the region's air.

"Although TVA has made commitments to put pollution controls on more of their units by 2010, they are not going far enough fast enough to protect the lives of many Tennesseans," True said.
TVA, the nation's largest public utility, is spending $1 million a day through the end of the decade on improvements in air pollution reduction as part of a $6 billion program to reduce its emissions of

sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxides.
John Shipp, TVA's vice president of environmental policy and planning, said Wednesday the science used in the report isn't strong enough to establish a cause-and-effect relationship between power-plant emissions and the health problems cited by the study's sponsors.

"The claims they are making are based on epidemiological studies, and those epidemiological studies look at things that are occurring and try to find an association between this and this, but they certainly do not establish cause and effect," Shipp said.

Shipp said that other studies have shown little or no association between particle pollution and health problems and suggested that many of the health issues cited in the study may be caused by spending too much time indoors.

"Perhaps where they need to start looking at is where we spend 90 percent of our time, which is indoors," he said. "We know the air in buildings is getting worse. Those are the places the folks interested in reducing asthma attacks and hospitalizations ... ought to be looking."

Shipp also pointed out that pollution has been dropping for nearly three decades.

"They say that asthma occurrences are going up, they say hospitalizations are going up, they say premature deaths are going up, yet every measure of pollution in this country is going down," Shipp said. "The air is getting cleaner."

The study was prepared by Abt Associates Inc., a Massachusetts-based consulting group used by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. The company was commissioned to do the report by environmental advocacy groups including the National Environmental Trust, the U.S. Public Interest Research Group and the Clean Air Task Force.

The study relied on computer modeling to compare EPA data on power-plant emission levels and dispersal patterns with the results of epidemiological studies by Harvard University in 1993 and the American Cancer Society in 1995, said Angela Ledford, who directs the groups' campaign on air pollution.

About 22,000 deaths a year in the United States could be avoided "by capping power plant sulfur dioxide and nitrogen oxide pollution at levels consistent with the installation of today's best available emissions controls," the report states.

Ledford and other environmental advocates were critical of President Bush's clean-air proposals and accused the administration of "allowing the polluters to re-write clean-air rules."

"The (Bush) administration's decision to ignore the Clean Air Act has resulted in too many asthma attacks, too many avoidable emergency room visits, too many lost work days and too many lives cut short," said Brenda Black, air-quality director of the American Lung Association of Tennessee.

John Millett, an EPA spokesman in Washington, D.C., said Wednesday the report "doesn't look at the whole picture."

"Administrator (Mike) Leavitt is committed to accelerating the progress of cleaning the air," he said. "EPA has proposed a suite of actions -- the Clean Air Rules of 2004 -- that will accelerate this progress and dramatically improve America's air quality.

"Taken together, the suite of Clean Air Rules will bring nearly every community in America into attainment under our new, more protective health-based air quality standards."

Local officials expect the EPA to designate Knoxville as a non-attainment zone for particle pollution this December, which could trigger economic sanctions similar to those recently imposed for high ozone pollution levels.

J.J. Stambaugh may be reached at 865-342-6307. The Associated Press contributed to this report.