Cue my self-righteous indignation. The next time I hear someone carping about “elites” wanting to minimize highway-building, I’m going to remind them that highways are a direct threat—not just who use them, but even to those who live near them.
In a first-rate article in the Seattle P-I today:
Residents of a broad swath of South Seattle from Seward Park to West Seattle face elevated cancer risks because of air pollution, according to a soon-to-be released government study.
The risks are significantly elevated in pockets of industrial pollution—and skyrocket within about 200 yards of highways, says the long-awaited study by state and federal scientists.
And:
The risk is far higher.. in South Seattle areas next to highways, the study found. Those places can be expected to produce as many as 3,600 cancer cases per million people exposed over a 70-year lifetime.
For context, when the risk exceeds 1 per million, environmental agencies have typically acted to reduce the risk. So 3,600 is a scary figure. Check out this map:
This particular study was just for south Seattle, but some of the findings can probably be generalized. Those bright-red high risk corridors along highways are likely to be just as problematic in north Seattle, not to mention Portland and Vancouver, as well as in wealthy suburbs and poorer enclaves, and so on. Highways generate tremendous amounts of dangerous pollution.
I don’t think it’s much of a stretch to imagine that folks who live within 200 yards of a highway have lower average incomes than those who live farther away. So highways aren’t really a problem for elites as much as they’re a problem created by elites—and dumped right into the laps of the poor.
Kevin Downing
This result should not be a surprise. There has been a lot of work published on characterizing pollution concentrations near roadways, for instance see http://www.westcoastdiesel.org/files/outreach/Health%20Effects%20and%20Exposure%20Studies.pdf for a 25 page bibliography. Clean air or no, being near roadways increases exposure and health risks from traffic related pollution. In Los Angeles one sudy documented impairments to lung function and development in children living near freeways, an effect observed even within the notoriously polluted airshed. This particular study really just confirms that even in the Seattle area that roadway pollution has an effect too. You seem to suggest that this is mainly a problem only for those living near by roadways. True enough, but there are also impacts on those that also live and travel on the road network. See http://ajrccm.atsjournals.org/cgi/content/full/169/8/934 for at least one study involving state police which concluded that persons in the road corridor faced increased risk of heart disease. Other studies have pointed to elevated levels of pollutants inside cars, where we think we are “safe”, even to demonstrate a differential between those in congested traffic as opposed to those in carpool lanes.
TomMJr
Give Tom McCabe a call at home! His personal number is 360-754-6449. I’m sure that he’d LOVE to hear from all of us day and night!