Register Guard

Op/Ed: Parents should know what their children are breathing

January 13th, 2006

By Lisa Arkin

Reporting Gas Stations Emissions is Important to Children’s Health

The Eugene City Council will soon consider adding gas stations and petroleum product distributors to the city’s Toxics Reporting Program.  Why these businesses? Studies from France , England , China , and the United States all confirm the same fact : Benzene, present in gasoline fumes (as well as in the manufacture of some paints, plastics and pesticides), is clearly established as causing cancer in humans.  Previously, exposure to benzene has been linked to leukemia in adults, but recent research has made the link to children.

France ’s national research institute recently published a study of 280 children younger than 15 years old diagnosed with acute leukemia, a cancer of the blood and bone marrow. Two-thirds of these children were 2-6 years old when diagnosed.  When compared with children not diagnosed with leukemia, the study found that children living near gas stations were four times more likely to have contracted leukemia.   These children were seven times more likely to contract Acute Myelogenous Leukemia (AML).  Children living for longer periods near a gas station experienced higher rates of leukemia.  Another study in England tracking 22,458 children who died from leukemia or solid cancers found that higher rates of childhood leukemia is associated with living near distributors and industrial users of petroleum products.

So do you think Eugene parents should have the right to learn how much benzene is in the air near their children? This will be the question when the Eugene City Council decides whether to add gas stations to the list of industrial facilities that must report under Eugene ’s toxics right-to-know law.

Eugene ’s law, passed by Eugene citizens in 1996, currently requires manufacturers that yearly use 2,640 pounds of hazardous substances to report their inputs and outputs of these toxics annually in April. You can read such reports for the past seven years at www.ci.eugene.or.us/toxics.

            In March 2005, the City Council directed the Toxics Board to prepare a list of additional categories of businesses that use more than 2,640 pounds of hazardous substances per year. The Board determined that gas stations, petroleum product distributors, and possibly manufacturers with less than ten employees (which currently do not report) use these large quantities of hazardous substances in Eugene . The City Council will now determine whether to add them to the reporting program.

             How much would reporting cost each Eugene gas station?  The yearly program fee for a gas station with five full-time employees would be approximately $155.  Since each gas station sells approximately 1.1 million gallons of gasoline, this might add a bit over 1/10,000 of one cent to the cost of a gallon of gas.  In other words, should gas stations choose to pass this cost on to consumers, we would pay one additional penny for every  10,000 gallons of gas purchased.

What about the costs of filling out the report? Gas station can quickly produce the annual report by using a state-approved formula that allows each gas station to automatically calculate escapes of their gasoline into the air based on quantity of gas sold.  If the station has a spill, it might have additional outputs to air or to surface water. Two formulas exist : one formula is for gas stations that use Stage One Vapor Control equipment and another for those that don’t. 

            What is Stage One Vapor Control equipment? This is a system of valves and gaskets inside the hoses of delivery trucks and the underground gas tanks.  The equipment creates a vacuum that recaptures fumes that would otherwise leak to the air when filling the tank.  A gas station can easily reduce its gasoline vapors by requiring trucks that fill the station’s underground tanks to use this system.  A 1978 law requires gas stations in the Portland metropolitan area, Salem , and Medford with an underground tank capacity of 1,500 gallons to install vapor control equipment.  As a result, gasoline delivery trucks have installed the equipment to do business in these three metropolitan areas­.  However, equipment to control noxious fumes is not required in other cities, including Eugene .

            Currently, Oregon ’s gas stations do not report their yearly gas use and emissions to any government agency, and don’t track their releases of benzene.  Wouldn’t you like to have the right to know how much benzene your local gas station is releasing?

Hopefully when they vote on this issue, the City Council will keep in mind the image of a two-year-old child with leukemia. That’s who the community’s right-to-know is for – our children.

Lisa Arkin, Executive Director

Oregon Toxics Alliance