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Federal environmental regulators have proposed a new rule to slash carcinogenic air pollution from chemical plants prevalent in Kanawha County.
But the rule proposal welcomed by air quality advocates faces a murky future in the incoming Trump administration, which is poised to roll back the planned rule.
The Environmental Protection Agency proposal released last month would strengthen the emission standards for ethylene oxide, a cancer-linked, colorless gas usually odorless at community air levels.
Of the 25 facilities to be covered by the proposed rule, six are in West Virginia.
A portion of the Altivia chemical site in Institute is shown in this July 11, 2024 photo.
KENNY KEMP | Gazette-Mail
The proposed rule would cover Union Carbide, Specialty Products LLC and Altivia facilities in Institute; Union Carbide and Covestro facilities in South ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä; and a Covestro facility in Wetzel County, according to EPA records. Long-term exposure to ethylene oxide has been linked to increases in female breast and white blood cell cancers, including leukemia, Hodgkin and non-Hodgkin lymphoma.
The rule will apply to facilities that produce polyether polyols, chemical compounds used to make adhesives, cosmetics, lubricants, pharmaceuticals, sealants and soaps.
The proposed rule estimates, based on current emissions, a maximum individual lifetime cancer risk of 1,000-in-1 million posed by plants in the polyether polyols category, driven by ethylene oxide emissions from wastewater and equipment leaks.
Maya Nye, a St. Albans native and federal policy director at Coming Clean, a chemical industry-focused environmental health nonprofit, said the rule should lower air emissions of ethylene oxide that are driving the risk of cancer from hazardous air pollution stemming from Institute, where Union Carbide has emitted thousands of pounds of ethylene oxide over decades.
“[That’s] something we have needed for a long time,†Nye said.
Plants emitted nearly ton of ethylene oxide in 2023
Union Carbide’s South ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä facility is pictured in this May 2021 photo.
KENNY KEMP | Gazette-Mail
The Union Carbide plants along W.Va. 25 in Institute and at 437 MacCorkle Ave. SW in South ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä have emitted over 868,000 pounds of ethylene oxide since 1987, according to a Gazette-Mail analysis of EPA data. Production and use of ethylene oxide in chemical manufacturing at Union Carbide plants in the Kanawha Valley predated World War II.
“As far as why the proposed rule matters to West Virginians, this rule will set stronger controls for toxic emissions from some of the most hazardous facilities in the state,†said Adam Kron, a supervising senior attorney for Earthjustice, a national environmental nonprofit with a long history of legal action against the EPA to prompt tighter chemical pollution standards.
Plants that would be covered by the rule in West Virginia released over 51,000 pounds of toxic chemicals to air in 2023, including more than 1,900 pounds of ethylene oxide, according to a Gazette-Mail review of EPA data.
Covestro spokesman Russell Glorioso said in an emailed statement the company is committed to conducting its business operations in a “safe, responsible and sustainable manner to protect the health and wellbeing of our employees and the community.†Covestro was evaluating the EPA’s rule proposal to determine the potential impact, if any, on its operations, Glorioso said.
Union Carbide did not respond to a request for comment.
In its planned rule, the EPA proposed requiring fenceline monitoring at facilities in the polyether polyols category that use, produce, store or emit ethylene oxide. The rule as proposed would require fenceline monitoring of EtO concentrations for one 24-hour period every five days using canister sampling.
The EPA estimated its proposed standards would lower hazardous air pollutant emissions from polyether polyol sources by roughly 157 tons per year, with proposed ethylene oxide emission standards expected to reduce emissions by approximately 14 tons per year.
“These rules are important,†EPA regional administrator Adam Ortiz said in a teleconference interview, noting that communities near facilities have lower life expectancy and face more health stressors than other communities. “We want to make sure that they’re not forgotten.â€
But the incoming Trump administration could kill the proposal’s protective measures, a reversal that would loom especially large in the Kanawha Valley.
It wasn’t until 2016 — after generations of ethylene oxide emissions in the “Chemical Valley†— that the EPA estimated ethylene oxide to be 30-times more carcinogenic for adults than previously projected, sending Kanawha County’s cancer risk soaring.
A 2018 EPA air toxics assessment found that six of the 90 census tracts with the highest cancer risk from ethylene oxide were in Kanawha County. The total cancer risk in Kanawha was 366 in 1 million, 10th-highest in the country.
Pollutant concentrations used in federal air toxics assessment risk calculations are based on computer model simulations, not actual measurements.
A 2024 update of a national toxic air pollution database found Union Carbide emissions of ethylene oxide contributed heavily to Kanawha County having many of the highest toxic air hazards for schools in the country.
Kanawha County residents have expressed beliefs and fears their neighborhoods have been ravaged by cancer caused by decades of toxic chemical emissions from Union Carbide and other chemical manufacturers.
Institute is a historically majority-Black community, prompting concerned residents to voice environmental injustice concerns about ethylene oxide and other industrial emissions there. Environmental injustice is disproportionate subjection of low-income areas and communities of color to pollution and its adverse health impacts.
“You name the cancer, we’ve got it,†Robbie Hendricks, then 65, of North ÂÒÂ×ÄÚÉä, said during a Department of Environmental Protection meeting last year on state measures to guard against ethylene oxide pollution. “We used to smell the chemicals.â€
The DEP has touted what it has called “collaborative agreements†with Kanawha Valley chemical makers reducing allowable ethylene oxide emissions.
But Hendricks rattled off a list of devastating maladies that included Parkinson’s disease and breast cancer he says had already proliferated throughout his neighborhood, earning it the nickname “Cancer Bottom.â€
Nye noted the EPA’s proposed rule doesn’t eliminate cancer risk.
“I personally don’t think it’s acceptable for anyone to be at risk of getting cancer simply from breathing the air at work, home or school, so more needs to be done,†Nye said. “But it’s a good step.â€
