EPA's Hazardous Air Pollutant rule (benzene)

Below is a letter written and submitted by Dona Hippert, solo law practitioner here in Portland, into the EPA docket on the issue of hazardous air pollutants in gasoline.

The Sellwood Playgroup Association is signed onto this letter.

The Oregonian reported on February 9, 2007 that the EPA will do the right thing and require oil companies to use appropriate refinery technology to remove benzene from our gasoline. It will take some time for refineries to add this process, and the EPA requires it be added by 2011, so we will still be breathing more benzene than most of the country until this time. However, I've heard that ARCO is removing some level of benzene, so I'm buying my gas from them. The Oregonian article is here.

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February 7, 2007

Re: Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2006-0406; Comments on the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants for Source Categories: Gasoline Distribution Bulk Terminals, Bulk Plants, Pipeline Facilities, and Gasoline Dispensing Facilities;

Air and Radiation Docket
EPA West Building
1301 Constitution Ave., NW, Room B-102
Washington, DC 20004

Dear Sir/Madam,

These comments are submitted on behalf of the following conservation and public health advocacy organizations, citizens’ associations, and all of their members who reside, recreate, visit, and breathe the air in the Pacific Northwest: Concerned Citizens for Clean Air, GASP, Hells Canyon Preservation Council, Northwest District Association, Northwest Environmental Defense Center, Oregon Center for Environmental Health, Oregon Chapter Sierra Club, Oregon Toxics Alliance, Oregon Wild (formerly ONRC), Sellwood Playgroup Association, and Washington Environmental Council (collectively, ‘Commenters’). Commenters appreciate the opportunity to address the problem of elevated levels of ambient benzene due to gasoline distribution and mobile source fuel combustion.

Gasoline refueling is a large source of ambient benzene concentration in Pacific Northwest air. This is due, in part, to the fact that gasoline in the Pacific Northwest has double the benzene content of gasoline sold in other parts of the country, and three times the amount allowed in California.

EPA classifies benzene as a Class A carcinogen and has concluded that Oregon’s cancer risk “is dominated by the emissions of benzene.” Studies show that breathing air contaminated with benzene inflicts genetic damage linked to childhood leukemia. See, e.g., Martyn T. Smith and Luoping Zhang, Biomarkers of Leukemia Risk: Benzene as a Model, Environmental Health Perspectives Supplements, Volume 106, Number S4, August 1998. Neighborhoods within two blocks of gas stations are exposed to benzene levels that increase the risk for leukemia.

According to Oregon’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ), the current benzene level in the Portland area is 20 times the acceptable cancer risk level of one in one million. DEQ Fact Sheet Benzene in Oregon’s Air, DEQ-06-018, last updated 11/15/06. EPA’s National Air Toxics Assessment shows all the state of Oregon’s average benzene concentration at the same elevated level of 20 times the cancer benchmark.

Furthermore, benzene is one of the volatile organic compounds that play a significant part in the formation of ground-level ozone, a corrosive air pollutant that damages human health, plant tissue, and contributes to global climate change.

In order to adequately protect public health and the environment, Commenters urge EPA to implement more stringent requirements than those in the proposed alternatives. Specifically, EPA’s final rule should extend controls to gasoline dispensing facilities, include vapor balancing requirements in addition to other controls, and apply the requirements nationwide and not just in urban areas, as advocated by DEQ’s comments to this docket, hereby incorporated by reference. EPA should further require the more stringent, updated emission standards and the accurate monitoring protocols suggested in the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency comments to this docket, also hereby incorporated by reference.

Clean air is a public trust, and the members of the above-named groups are beneficiaries of that trust. As the agency vested with the duty to ensure the proper administration of that trust, EPA should promulgate rules that take into account all the environmental and public health costs associated with those rules and standards. EPA’s rules should maximize the benefits to public health and the environment, rather than emphasizing the costs to regulated industry as they currently do.

For example, instead of exempting small facilities when the costs would impose an unfair burden on them, EPA could require that the larger refiners subsidize controls at those smaller facilities, by remitting a small portion of the exorbitant profits they are now reaping. This is a much more equitable solution than sacrificing the health of the citizenry.

Finally, as suggested by the recent letters from the Oregon legislature and a joint letter from Oregon and Washington cities, EPA should also revise its final rule controlling hazardous emissions from mobile sources (Docket ID No. EPA-HQ-OAR-2005-0036) to eliminate the averaging, banking, and trading program, thereby lowering the amount of benzene allowed in Northwest gasoline. This would remedy the gross inequity currently experienced by Northwest citizens regarding the purity of the air we breathe.

Ultimately, EPA should perform a thorough air toxics assessment, as urged last June by the General Accounting Office. See EPA Should Improve the Management of its Air Toxics Program, GAO-06-669, June 2006. If warranted by that assessment, EPA should further reduce the level of benzene and other air toxics nationwide.


Thank you again for your consideration of these comments.

Respectfully submitted on behalf of Commenters,

Dona Hippert, Attorney at Law
OSB # 040725

Lisa Arkin
Executive Director
Oregon Toxics Alliance

Maxine Centala
Board of Directors
Concerned Citizens for Clean Air

Sharon Genasci
Health and Environment Committee Chair
Northwest District Association

Jane Harris
Executive Director
Oregon Center for Environmental Health

Karyn Jones
Board of Directors
GASP

Brian Kelly
Restoration Coordinator
Hells Canyon Preservation Council

Mo McBroom
Policy Director
Washington Environmental Council

Regna Merritt
Executive Director
Oregon Wild (formerly ONRC)

Eric R. Miller, PT, MHS
Sellwood Playgroup Association

Bob Palzer
Air Quality Issues Coordinator
Oregon Chapter Sierra Club

Mark Riskedahl
Executive Director
Northwest Environmental Defense Center






cc: U.S. Senator Ron Wyden
Andy Ginsburg, Oregon DEQ
Oregon State Representative Jackie Dingfelder
Oregon State Senator Brad Avakian
Portland Mayor Tom Potter
Beaverton Mayor Rob Drake
Seattle Mayor Greg Nickels
Tukwila Mayor Steve Mullet
Dennis J. McClerran, Puget Sound Clean Air Agency