Recently, my research on air toxics and environmental inequality in U.S. states revealed a significant policy difference likely responsible for environmental justice progress in Oregon but regression in Washington. Turns out, there’s not cleaner air for everyone, everywhere in Ecotopia.

Washington State’s Department of Ecology (ECY) and the Puget Sound Clean Air Agency (PSCAA) rely on the minimum and 1990s-era “source-control” strategy for air toxics control. Conversely, OR developed a cumulative and geographic area strategy in addition to their source-control policy through Ambient Benchmark Concentrations (ABCs). While OR’s ABCs are guidelines instead of legal standards, they drive a more active air toxics control program. Moreover, it’s probably better funded.

OR spends nearly twice as much per resident on environmental protection than WA. In 2015, OR directed $875 Million to its environmental agencies compared to WA’s $828 million. Yet, WA has nearly double the population of OR; 7.1 Million to four Million. So, WA’s environmental budget also seems stuck in the nineties. In policy circles, analysts also might add that WA’s air quality professionals are avoiding the delineation of problems they don’t have money to address.

OR clearly demonstrates “beyond compliance” efforts and a more responsive air toxics strategy. However, California and Massachusetts represent the most advanced states for air toxics regulation. In other words, CA and MA are leaders (A students), OR in a second tier (B students), but WA is a laggard (a C student at best). WA may be compliant, but comparatively they also look relatively complacent and unresponsive. We are long overdue for an air toxics strategy overhaul in WA to catch up with OR, CA, and MA.

Compliant Source Strategies versus Beyond Compliance Responsiveness

First, it’s important to recognize that the U.S. Environmental Protection (EPA) never established ambient or area-based air toxics standards in the Clean Air Act Amendments (CAAA) of 1970. However, the 1990 Amendments directed EPA to promulgate standards for the sources of 187 “air toxics” known as the National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAPs). Moreover, the 1990 CAAA defined sources to be regulated if they are a “major source” by emitting or potentially emitting 10 tons per year of any of the 187 air toxics or 25 tons of any combination of air toxics.

Congress also established what some call a “residual-risk bright line” for determining acceptable public exposure to air toxics in the CAAA. Thus, EPA was directed to assure that the increased lifetime cancer risk from exposure to an air toxic must not exceed one in a million (10-6) for an effected population. This is the floor that no state program should fall below. Our nation’s air toxics regulation and monitoring system routinely gets poor grades from nonpartisan government evaluators from the Government Accountability Office (in 1991, 2006, and recently) and the EPA’s Office of the Inspector General (in 2005, 2010).

WA complies with NESHAPs through its establishment of Acceptable Source Impact Level (ASIL) for 430 air toxics. While that’s more pollutants than EPA identified, I wouldn’t judge WA’s effort as beyond compliance. Washington’s air toxics program only covers sources of HAPs while OR’s addresses ambient or geographic area air toxics thresholds. For instance, we learned at the last Duwamish Clean Air Program meeting that Ardagh glass is well-within the ASIL threshold for chromium and other air toxics. But, this reveals what most see as a major limitation. WA’s air toxics management only considers single sources independently or piecemeal and ignores cumulative impacts.

For example, if there are three WA facilities in the same geographic emitting 5 tons of an air toxic or some combination, they escape regulatory scrutiny. The CAAA classifies them as a small stationary source instead of a major source. Yet, their cumulative impact of 15 tons of an air toxic exceeds one facility emitting 12 tons of air toxics and regulated by CAAA regulations as a major source. So, ignoring the cumulative impacts of several sources leaves a gaping regulatory blind spot for air toxics in WA. Since pictures are worth a thousand words, I’ll display two contrasting approaches to risk assessment and management on the following page from one of EPA’s first conceptualizations of cumulative risk assessment. The left figure captures WA’s approach while the second OR’s.

On the left, imagine an industrial source as the stressor with WA air toxics regulators considering facilities in isolation during the permitting process. OR also regulates sources and developed similar source-based threshold values like WA’s ASIL standards. As described in OR’s 2003 air toxics staff report, “These standards, while important to reducing emissions from major sources, do not consider the cumulative effects of multiple small and large sources in populated areas” (p. 4). Thus, OR developed a geographic strategy through ambient air toxics benchmarks as well.

In 2006, OR adopted established Ambient Benchmark Concentrations (ABCs) for geographic areas at one in a million excess lifetime cancer risk accounting for sensitive populations. That program further directed OR’s Department of Environmental Quality (DEQ) to prioritize areas where ABCs posed excess cancer risks above 10 in one million for mitigation. This cumulative and geography area air toxics strategy led to the 2012 Portland Air Toxics study starting with the following statement. “Forming individual airsheds based on geography allows the Department of Environmental Quality or DEQ to define problem areas for air toxics in Oregon. It also allows DEQ to prioritize and focus efforts to reduce air toxics. Under this geographic approach, DEQ and community members evaluate air toxics holistically in an area, striving for reductions from various sources roughly commensurate with their contributions” (p. 3).

In 2018, OR completed a rulemaking overhaul of its air toxics program titled Cleaner Air Oregon (CAO). “The long-term goal of Cleaner Air Oregon is to achieve a 50% reduction in the number of existing sources posing either an excess cancer risk of more than 25 in a million or a Hazard Index of more than 1 by the year 2034” (p. 3). This law follows CA’s 1987 requirements that large and small stationary sources likely producing cancer and noncancer risks above benchmarks estimate their air toxics hazards and reduce emissions to meet health-based standards. Companies instead of communities must now prove they are safe for their neighbors. If they aren’t safe enough, polluters must develop toxic pollution prevention plans. Last year, the first 20 companies were selected for CAO review. WA’s air toxics strategy looks pretty impotent in comparative terms.

In conclusion, WA is an exemplary laggard when it comes to regulating and reducing air toxics. In our study of state-level inequality trends published last year (Salazar et al. 2019), WA was one of six states (with Alaska, Louisiana, Missouri, New York, and North Dakota) where the worst level of toxic exposure (90^th percentile) increased along with race-based environmental inequality between 2004-2014. For the nation, industrial toxic exposures fell dramatically while environmental inequality persisted. Both got worse in WA however (See Figure 1 in our article: SalazarD_etal_2019_US_state_environ_inequality_SSQ100n3). Toxic exposures and racial inequality improved in OR. Thus, while OR saw facilities getting both safer and their exposures more just, WA’s got riskier and more unjust.