Study Shows Maryland Intercounty Connector Would Violate New Federal Air Pollution Health Standard

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact:

Sean Crowley, scrowley@environmentaldefense.org, 202-572-3331

Sharyn Stein, sstein@environmentaldefense.org, 202-572-3396

(Washington, DC – June 12, 2007) – A new study released today by two leading environmental groups shows that construction of the Intercounty Connector, a proposed 18-mile toll road between Montgomery and Prince George’s Counties in Maryland, would violate recently tightened federal air quality health standards and put children and others at risk of serious health impacts (see www.environmentaldefense.org/go/iccoptions). The groups called on the U.S. Department of Transportation (DOT) to withhold further approval of the Intercounty Connector (ICC) highway project pending review of this new study and other scientific research that shows significant new evidence of harm to human health from highway emissions.  Today’s petition by Environmental Defense and the Sierra Club says a supplemental environmental impact statement is required under several federal laws before the project can be approved for construction. 

“The independent detailed scientific modeling of the ICC’s effects on air pollution released today shows the road would cause violations of the Clean Air Act standards for fine soot pollution that went into effect in December 2006,” said Michael Replogle, Environmental Defense’s transportation director, a former transportation coordinator for Montgomery County, Maryland.

“New studies published since the initial environmental impact statement on the ICC indicate that exposure to the mixture of toxic pollutants coming from motor vehicles can worsen asthma, impair lung development among children, and contribute to heart disease and premature death,” said John Balbus, MD, MPH, Health Program Director of Environmental Defense. “These effects are especially apparent in children, who have heightened susceptibility to traffic-associated air pollution because of their smaller size, increased respiratory rates, actively developing lungs, and greater and more active time spent outdoors.”

“The National Environmental Policy Act imposes upon federal agencies a continuing obligation to gather and evaluate new information that is relevant to the environmental impacts of ongoing actions,” said Steve Caflisch, Transportation Chair for the Maryland Chapter of the Sierra Club. “Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency released an updated master list of more than one thousand chemicals emitted by mobile sources, including 93 chemicals emitted by motor vehicles that are well-recognized to have serious health effects from environmental levels of exposure, including cancer, respiratory irritation, and neurotoxicity. Given this disturbing new information, the DOT needs to go back to the drawing board and reevaluate its approval of the ICC.”

The petition demonstrates that:

1)      Emissions from the ICC will cause or contribute to violations of the revised 24-hour National Ambient Air Quality Standards for fine particulate matter pollution (PM2.5) promulgated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency on October 17, 2006;

2)      Emissions from the ICC will reasonably be expected to cause harm to the health of sensitive populations—including but not limited to—harm to children who reside, attend school or recreate within 500 meters of the ICC and other highways in the study area where average annual daily traffic levels will exceed 45,000 vehicle trips by impairing normal lung development and increasing the severity of asthma attacks thereby requiring more frequent emergency care or hospitalization, and harm to elderly residents; and

3)      Modeling tools are available to perform a health risk assessment for the purpose of estimating the likely community exposures to toxic air pollutants emitted from the ICC, and to estimate the likely public health consequences of these exposures to pollutants that are known human carcinogens and/or known to cause other severe life-threatening diseases.

Last December, Environmental Defense and the Sierra Club filed a lawsuit to stop the ICC because state and federal agencies studying and approving the project failed to consider the reasonable alternatives that would better address traffic problems, while protecting public health and the region’s parks and natural resources.  Last fall, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (“EPA”) announced a final revision of the National Ambient Air Quality Standards (“NAAQS”) for fine particulate matter pollution known as PM2.5. Based on numerous studies that documented the causal link between short-term inhalation of PM2.5 and premature mortality, heart attacks, and respiratory diseases, including lung cancer and asthma, the EPA concluded that the former “suite of primary PM2.5 standards, taken together, is not sufficient and thus not requisite to protect public health” and revised the former 24-hour standard of 65 micrograms per cubic meter to 35 micrograms per cubic meter.

“The revised National Ambient Air Quality Standards change the legal threshold for determining whether air quality resulting from the ICC will cause significant harm to health, and whether the proposed highway will no longer comply with the Clean Air Act,” said Bob Yuhnke, an attorney for Environmental Defense who filed the petition and represents Environmental Defense in the ICC suit.  “The National Environmental Policy Act mandates that a supplemental environmental impact statement be prepared to disclose these changes to the public and the decision-maker, to determine whether emissions from the ICC will violate the revised National Ambient Air Quality Standards, and to evaluate alternatives and mitigation measures for their potential to eliminate, avoid or minimize potential violations of these standards.”