Air Pollution
Black St. Louisans are exposed to air pollution from industries and power plants,¹ vehicles, and building demolitions. St. Louis has been in violation of the federal health-based air standard for ozone since 1979,² and violated the federal health-based standard for fine particle pollution from 2005 through 2017.³
Particle pollution—small inhalable particles found in the air, such as organic compounds, metals, dust, pollen, and mold— contributes to premature death, heart attacks, aggravated asthma, and reduced lung function.⁴
As Figure 4.1 shows, most air pollution sources in St. Louis are located in neighborhoods of color. The blue dots represent sources that have air pollution permits or are otherwise regulated by the EPA, state, and local air pollution agencies, and the darker shades of red indicate areas with high percentages of residents of color. A cluster of polluting sources is particularly evident along the Mississippi River, in areas with high percentages of residents of color.
FIGURE 4.1. AIR POLLUTION SOURCES AND PERCENT RESIDENTS OF COLOR BY WARD⁵
In addition, with vehicles creating unhealthy air pollution⁶, it is noteworthy that many areas bordering the major highways are majority-black, as shown in Figure 4.2.
FIGURE 4.2. EXPOSURE TO AIR POLLUTION FROM VEHICLE TRAFFIC BY WARD⁷
Building demolitions also add harmful air pollution to St. Louis neighborhoods.⁸ Concentrations of harmful dust can be 3 to 11 times higher than normal levels at sites downwind of demolitions.⁹ If not done properly, demolitions also spread lead and/or asbestos into the surrounding neighborhood.¹⁰ Figure 4.3 shows both the majority black neighborhoods in St. Louis and each neighborhood’s percentage of the 3,025 total demolition permits issued citywide between 2014 and 2019.¹¹ Lead exposure is of particular concern in Wells/Goodfellow (232 permits issued), Walnut Park East (182 permits issued), and Baden (179 permits issued).¹² More permits were issued in North City and the Dutchtown neighborhood—which have high concentrations of black residents—than in other areas of the City.
Students and teachers at the Gateway school complex in North City complained for months during the 2017-2018 school year about asthma and breathing problems that appeared to be caused by nearby demolitions at the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency site and dumping of the debris at the old Pruitt-Igoe site.¹³
FIGURE 4.3. PERCENTAGE OF TOTAL DEMOLITION PERMITS BY NEIGHBORHOOD, 2014-2019¹⁴
There are too few air pollution monitoring stations in St. Louis¹⁵ to allow for comparisons of air pollution in different neighborhoods. However, the locations of air pollution sources, vehicle emissions, and demolitions all indicate that minority communities in St. Louis are being disproportionately exposed to harmful air pollution.
Health Risks of Air Pollution
Ozone pollution—the primary component of smog, which occurs when pollutants from vehicles, power plants, and other sources chemically react in the presence of sunlight—causes more frequent asthma attacks, and worsens lung diseases such as emphysema and chronic bronchitis.¹⁶ Ozone pollution also causes breathing difficulty, lung infections, damage to lungs and airways, coughing, and sore throats.¹⁷ Other health effects related to air pollution include cardiovascular diseases and adverse birth outcomes, such as low birth weight and pre-term birth.¹⁸ Recent studies indicate that air pollution may also affect diabetes and neurological development in children.¹⁹ Globally, 4.2 million premature deaths occur each year due to air pollution.²⁰
References
¹ Maria Hallas, Is Ameren Pollution Making Asthma Worse?, KSDK (Feb. 2, 2018), available at http://www.ksdk.com/article/news/investigations/is-ameren-pollutionmaking-asthma-worse/63-513846423.
² Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), Missouri Nonattainment/Maintenance Status, available at https://www3.epa.gov/airquality/greenbook/anayo_mo.html; Missouri Department of Natural Resources, Revision to Area Boundary Designation Recommendation for the 2015 Ozone Standard (Feb. 1, 2018), p. 6, available at https://dnr.mo.gov/env/apcp/ozone/revision-toarea-boundary2015ozone02.01.2018.pdf. While St. Louis is not meeting the current ozone standard set by EPA in 2015, ozone concentrations in the city have gone down over time – as has the acceptable standard. See OneSTL, Air Quality, available at http://www.onestl.org/indicators/green/metric/air-quality; See also EPA, Table of Historical Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards (NAAQS), available at https://www.epa.gov/ground-level-ozone-pollution/table-historical-ozone-national-ambient-air-quality-standards-naaqs.
³ EPA, Missouri Nonattainment/Maintenance Status for Each County by Year for All Criteria Pollutants, available at https://www3.epa.gov/airquality/greenbook/anayo_mo.html.
⁴ EPA, Particulate Matter (PM) Basics, available at https://www.epa.gov/pm-pollution/particulate-matter-pm-basics; EPA, Health and Environmental Effects of Particulate Matter (PM), available at https://www.epa.gov/pm-pollution/health-and-environmental-effects-particulate-matter-pm.
⁵ Prepared by the Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic. Data Sources: EPA, 2018 EJ Screen Public Geodatabase, available at ftp://newftp.epa.gov/EJSCREEN/2018/EJSCREEN_2018_USPR_ Public.gdb.zip; EPA, FRS Facilities Geodatabase, available at https://www3.epa.gov/enviro/html/fii/downloads/FRS_INTERESTS_download.zip.
⁶ Grace Hill Settlement House, Grace Hill Clean Air Project: CARE Level II Grantee Final Report, p. 1, available at https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2016-08/documents/grace_hill_ report-508.pdf; Union of Concerned Scientists, Cars, Trucks, Buses and Air Pollution, available at https://www.ucsusa.org/clean-vehicles/vehicles-air-pollution-and-human-health.
⁷Prepared by the Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic. Data Sources: EPA, 2018 EJ Screen Public Geodatabase, available at ftp://newftp.epa.gov/EJSCREEN/2018/EJSCREEN_2018_USPR_ Public.gdb.zip; City of St. Louis, Census Results (2010), Ward Results (2011 Boundaries), available at http://dynamic.stlouis-mo.gov/census/ward11.cfm.
⁸Farhad Azarmi and Prashant Kumar, Ambient exposure to coarse and fine particle emissions from building demolition, Atmospheric Environment 137:62-79 (2016).
⁹ Id., p. 77.
¹⁰ EPA, On the Road to Reuse: Residential Demolition Bid Specification Development Tool (Sept. 2013), pp. 9-14, available at https://www.epa.gov/sites/production/files/2013-09/documents/road-to-reuse-residential-demolition-bid-specification-201309.pdf.; Felicia Rabito et al., The association between demolition activity and children’s blood lead levels, Environmental Research 103:345-351 (2007), pp. 349-50.
¹¹ City of St. Louis, Demolition Permits by Neighborhood, available at https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/data/demolition-permits/neighborhoods.cfm (number of permits current as of May 23, 2019).
¹² City of St. Louis, Demolition Permits by Neighborhood, available at https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/data/demolition-permits/neighborhoods.cfm (number of permits current as of May 23, 2019).
¹³ Ryan Delaney, ‘Dust bowl’ created by NGA project demolition blamed for sickening kids, teachers, St. Louis Public Radio (May 14, 2018), available at https://news.stlpublicradio.org/post/dust-bowlcreated-nga-project-demolition-blamed-sickening-kids-teachers#stream/0.
¹⁴ Prepared by the Interdisciplinary Environmental Clinic. Data Sources: City of St. Louis, Demolition Permits by Neighborhood, available at https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/data/demolition-permits/ index.cfm; City of St. Louis, Census Results (2010), Neighborhood Results, available at http://dynamic.stlouis-mo.gov/census/neighborhood.cfm
¹⁵ See Missouri Department of Natural Resources, Statewide Network of Air Monitoring Sites, Links to Missouri’s Air Monitoring Sites, available at https://dnr.mo.gov/env/esp/aqm/critmap.htm.
¹⁶ EPA, Ground-level Ozone Basics, available at https://www.epa.gov/ground-level-ozone-pollution/ground-level-ozone-basics; EPA, Health Effects of Ozone Pollution, available at https://www. epa.gov/ground-level-ozone-pollution/health-effects-ozone-pollution. See also Asthma and Allergy Foundation of America, Air Pollution, available at https://www.aafa.org/air-pollution-smogasthma/; Michael Guarnieri and John Balmes, Outdoor air pollution and asthma, Lancet 383:1581-1592 (2014).
¹⁷ EPA, Health Effects of Ozone Pollution, available at https://www.epa.gov/ground-level-ozone-pollution/health-effects-ozone-pollution.
¹⁸ WHO, Ambient Air Pollution: Health Impacts, available at https://www.who.int/airpollution/ambient/health-impacts/en/
¹⁹ Id.
²⁰ Id.