Greenversations

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection.Previous Science Wednesdays.

By Katie Lubinsky

Imagine the swooshing sound of air being vacuumed. This is what I heard the second I stepped into the car. As I looked inside, I noticed the jungle of wires, plugs and Back to the Future-like machines. While maybe not as cool as a DeLorean, the vehicle I just stepped into might just be a clean air scientist’s dream ride.

Lucky for me I was riding with one—EPA’s own Gayle Hagler (someone I’ve blogged about previously). Gayle invited me to ride along with her in EPA’s tripped out science vehicle, so I could learn more about the Geospatial Mapping of Air Pollutants (GMAP) project.

Through the project, Gayle and other researchers are designing, developing and utilizing state-of-the-art mobile measurement systems to gain insights into the sources of air pollution and the impacts emissions have on public health.

This isn’t your ordinary car. What started out as an everyday, economy-sized, gasoline-powered vehicle was transformed into an electric-powered, zero emissions, air quality ‘sniffing’ machine that can travel up to 100 miles, give or take depending on the speed. Gayle and her EPA colleagues use it to measure air pollution on and near highways.

From the outside, the car looks normal except for a small sphere-like ‘hat’ on top. This is where the high-tech GPS antenna sits and gives the car’s location by the second. Inside is where you really notice the differences. Here, there are many machines that take in outside air as the car drives, which analyze the amount and types of pollutants being emitted by other vehicles.

I’ve never ridden in an electric car before and especially one with top-of-the-line air pollution monitoring equipment in it. I felt as if I were a character in Back to the Future with all the science going on but relieved to notice Gayle was way more down to earth than crazed “Doc Brown.” As we rolled, she explained some of the data activities going on around us like how she and her colleagues collect measurements on pollutants important to the Agency, including black carbon, carbon monoxide and fine particles.

I felt very privileged to ride in such style—an innovative EPA vehicle that measures air quality as part of our effort to inform policy from a local to national level.

About the author: Katie Lubinsky is a student contractor working with EPA’s Office of Research and Development.

Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in Greenversations are those of the author. They do not reflect EPA policy, endorsement, or action, and EPA does not verify the accuracy or science of the contents of the blog.

By Amy Miller

My family lives in a village where we can walk to the post office, grocery store and pizza parlor. Most important of all, our children can walk to school, at least until sixth grade.

Nationally, only about 15 percent of children walk to school. This is a serious drop from when I was a kid. In 1969 about half of children 5 to 15 walked to school, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The majority of parents said their children don’t walk because it was too far. A third said the danger of traffic scared them. But the truth is only 31 percent of children who live within a mile of school walked or biked compared to closer to 90 percent in 1969.

A national Safe Routes to School program tries to address these barriers. It encourages schools, for instance, to arrange for children to meet within a mile of school and travel in “walking school buses.” It suggests crossing signals, better enforcement of speed limits and teaching children pedestrian skills.

One program in California saw a 64 percent increase in walking the second year of their program. Many towns, including mine, have instituted Walk to School Days. South Berwick has one such day a month and the streets are filled with children, teachers and parents using the sidewalks and getting exercise.

When my daughter began walking to fourth grade in 2007, she and her friends were often nearly alone on the road. Today, her younger brother passes other kids walking, boys on bikes and several other parents making the mile trek from downtown.

EPA, which has joined the effort to get kids out of vehicles, notes that the location of a school plays a large role in how children travel. When neighborhood schools are closed, children are more likely to drive, resulting in more air pollution and less exercise.

My family often strays from our goal. When it rains really hard, when we are driving anyway, when we are rushed to get to karate or dance, we drive. But most of the time we walk. And on these trips we get to kick snowballs down the street, greet neighbors along the way and practice times tables. And it is on these days that I feel there is no higher priority for 20 minutes of our day.

About the author:  Amy Miller is a writer who works in the public affairs office of EPA New England in Boston. She lives in Maine with her husband, two children, seven chickens, two parakeets, dog and a great community.

Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in Greenversations are those of the author. They do not reflect EPA policy, endorsement, or action, and EPA does not verify the accuracy or science of the contents of the blog.

By Sarah Bae

My mom works full-time, and has done so for decades. Although she’s nearing 60, and has various health issues stemming from the stress of her work, because I have an 11 year old sister, she says she won’t be retiring anytime soon. Our family has always lived in big cities, and on vacations we go to places like Washington D.C. or New York City – always cities. My mom deserves a relaxing vacation, as does every mom, so it is important to be aware that women are susceptible to multiple environmental health impacts. Be prepared during trips. A big one, strongly associated with congested urban areas like cities, is air pollution.

Air pollutants can come from fine particles, like vehicle exhaust and soot, gases such as ozone and carbon monoxide, smoke from tobacco and stoves, as well as fumes released from the burning of coal, oil, kerosene, everyday household cleaning products and paints. Fine particles, and ozone in particular, are considered the most harmful pollutants.

For older women who may already have health problems, like my mother, exposure to air pollution can be particularly harmful. Air pollution can cause sudden variations or an increase in heart rate for those with cardiovascular problems, which could be a catalyst for conditions leading to a heart attack. For those with a lung disease, air pollution can lead to lung inflammation, difficulty breathing, and aggravation of asthma. Additionally, those with diabetes may also find that their risk of suffering a heart attack, stroke, and other heart problems increases.

To avoid or minimize exposure to air pollution, check the Air Quality Index (AQI) daily. The AQI reports on how clean the air is and whether it can affect your health. It recommends to reduce outdoor activity on bad air quality days. More information about the AQI is available. Information about daily air quality can also be obtained through newspaper, television, and radio weather reports. However, staying indoors doesn’t guarantee complete safety from air pollution as fine particles can enter buildings through open windows or doors, and tobacco smoke as well as fumes from cleaning products can concentrate in indoor areas with inadequate ventilation.

For more information

About the author: Sarah Bae is a summer intern for the Office of Public Engagement. She is a rising senior at UC Berkeley majoring in Society and Environment.

Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in Greenversations are those of the author. They do not reflect EPA policy, endorsement, or action, and EPA does not verify the accuracy or science of the contents of the blog.

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays.

By Sarah Blau

A few weeks ago my eyes wouldn’t stop itching. That intense, burning itch you know you shouldn’t scratch, but eventually you do. My irritated eyes were telling me that something was wrong, that some foreign species was polluting the air I breathe and my body did not like it.

The source of this relentless itch I discovered from the news on the drive home—wildfires! Wildfire smoke, to be more exact, wafting some 200 miles from the North Carolina coast where peat fires have been smoldering since early May.

As it turns out, I had only one minor symptom of something that can actually cause serious health problems.

In fact, I recently learned that a team of scientists led by EPA investigated the cardiovascular health effects of a similar eastern NC peat fire in 2008. A paper describing the results of this study was published Monday by Environmental Health Perspectives.

Researchers collected emergency room (ER) records from counties directly affected by the 2008 fire’s smoke plume and compared those records to ER records from smoke-free neighboring counties. Research statistics show that the smoke affected counties had an increase in ER visits by 65% for asthma, 59% for pneumonia and bronchitis, and 37% for symptoms of heart failure.

Photo courtesy US Fish and Wildlife Service

Peat fires differ from western canopy wildfires in both the way they burn and the chemical composition of their smoke. This is the first known study to show that exposure to a peat fire can cause both respiratory and cardiovascular effects, and the first study to conclusively show associations between a wildfire and emergency department visits for heart failure symptoms.

Wildfires are inevitable, but we are not completely helpless to suffer their mal-effects. EPA’s AIRNow website is an excellent source for information on both the air quality in your region, and how to protect yourself from the hazard of wildfire smoke.

Whether it’s severe cardiovascular illness or minor allergy-type symptoms, research by EPA and others has shown that wildfire smoke can have harmful health effects. Keep yourself informed of your local air quality and when conditions are poor, take appropriate actions. Maybe if I had taken a shorter morning walk outside with my dog, I wouldn’t have had itchy eyes all day!

About the author:  Sarah Blau is a student services contractor working with EPA’s Science Communication Team.

Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in Greenversations are those of the author. They do not reflect EPA policy, endorsement, or action, and EPA does not verify the accuracy or science of the contents of the blog.

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays.

By Tanya Otte

Recently, powerful tornadoes ripped through central North Carolina. My yard, more than five miles from the nearest tornado touch-down, collected remnants of someone else’s losses: wads of insulation, fragments of ceiling tiles, a shard of vinyl siding, a shingle. It was fascinating that this debris could travel so far. Where on the path of the tornado did it come from?

In high school, we are introduced to Isaac Newton and his three laws of physics. Like many of you, I sat through it and acknowledged that this is nice to know, but I really did not appreciate the power of Newton’s laws. It turns out that those three laws are pretty important.
When something is injected into the atmosphere, it has to go somewhere. This includes debris from a tornado, exhaust from your car, “that smell” from the factory, and all other stuff regardless of its size. It may change form from interactions with water, sunlight, and other “things” in the air and/or with temperature changes. So where could it go, and how do we know?

To understand how the atmosphere moves the stuff that is put into it, scientists use “models”—collections of equations built from what we know.

Newton’s laws are three of the basic tenets of what we know for building atmospheric models. We also use other things we know, such as the composition of the atmosphere and how things in it interact with each other and with sunlight. We use measurements of weather and air quality to start our models and to check the quality of our predictions.

Models help scientists understand the complex interactions of atmospheric pollutants with weather and climate. Models are used to support regulations on emissions that protect human health and conserve resources. Thousands of scientists worldwide use models developed by the EPA to understand, predict, and reduce air pollution. Needless to say, models are rather powerful scientific tools.

I still don’t know where the debris in my yard originated, but I could use a model to figure it out.

About the author: Tanya Otte, a research physical scientist, has worked at EPA in atmospheric modeling and analysis since 1998.

By  Administrator Lisa P. Jackson

When we talk about environmentalism, it typically brings to mind sweeping vistas and wide-open landscapes. Some people might think of saving the whales, protecting spotted owls or preserving old-growth forests. Those things are critically important – but they only tell part of the story. When the modern environmental movement got its start in the 1960s, it took hold in our nation’s cities and was led by people concerned about pollution in the air they were breathing, toxins in the water they were drinking and chemicals on the food they were eating.

The effort to safeguard our environment started – and continues to be – an effort to safeguard our health.

April 4-11 is National Public Health Week, and the EPA is sending a clear message: Environmental protection is public health protection. It is family protection and community protection. It is about safeguarding people in the places where they live, work, play, and learn.

Each and every day, the people of this agency step up to protect the air we breathe, the water that flows into our communities and the land where we build our communities. These are things the American people expect and deserve – whether it’s the everyday protection of air and water, or a response to situations like the Japan nuclear incident, where EPA monitoring of radiation levels is keeping all of us aware and ready to respond if needed.

The environmental standards that EPA sets have prevented hundreds of thousands of premature deaths annually and provide the American people with some $22 trillion in health benefits. What those statistics really mean is that the buses taking our kids to school no longer put dangerous lead emissions into the air. When you pour yourself a glass of water, you can be confident it will be free of harmful levels of chemicals. And when you buy an apple at the store, it hasn’t been sprayed with arsenic-based pesticides – like they were decades ago.

This year, Public Health Week comes on the heels of an important advance in EPA’s health protection work. We recently proposed the first-ever national Mercury and Air Toxics Standards for power plants – reasonable standards that will require American power plants to utilize pollution control technologies that cut harmful emissions of mercury, arsenic, chromium, nickel and acid gases. These pollutants have been linked to neurological problems, developmental disorders in our children, respiratory illnesses and other costly health challenges.

The Mercury and Air Toxics Standards proposal initiates an effort that – through the commonsense goal of reducing harmful pollution in the air we breathe – will save thousands of lives and spare hundreds of thousands from illnesses. We estimate that the widespread adoption of pollution control technology would prevent 17,000 premature deaths and 11,000 heart attacks, while also avoiding 120,000 cases of childhood asthma symptoms and ensuring about 11,000 fewer cases of acute bronchitis among children each year. It’s an important reminder of the critical role the EPA plays in safeguarding our health and our children’s health.

Our challenge is to make these health issues a larger part of our environmental conversation. We want to establish the connection that clean air means less asthma, that reducing pollution in our water reduces pollution in our bodies, and that stronger chemical management means safer products for us and our children. That way, environmental protection can serve as “an ounce of prevention” to safeguard the health of millions of Americans.

By Sarah Blau

Today when I step outside after a long day of work, I will draw in a nice deep breath of fresh air….hmmm, I wonder what I am actually inhaling?

Oh, there’s definitely some oxygen in there, and probably some nitrogen and carbon dioxide too – I hear these things are common in air. But what with the cars zooming out of the parking lot, the groundskeepers spraying the shrubs, and the commuter bus making its daily rounds, I’m guessing there are chemicals going into my body that I’ve never even heard of.

The point is, pollution doesn’t affect people one chemical at a time. There is a whole plethora of chemicals floating around out there (most common air pollutants) and we want to know what they are going to do in our bodies!

This is why in early March I was excited to attend the Society of Toxicology’s Annual Meeting where EPA announced the creation of four new Clean Air Research Centers (CLARCs). One of the main goals of the centers is to research air pollution mixtures and how those mixtures affect our bodies.

Each of the four university-based CLARCs will receive $8 million over a 5-year grant period. The research centers are located at: Harvard University, Michigan State University, University of Washington, and a combined effort from Emory University and the Georgia Institute of Technology.

Each CLARC will have its own research focus, but the overarching theme of their research projects will be to better understand the health risks associated with air pollution and mixtures. More specific projects include studying the connections between air pollution and obesity, investigating how roadway pollution affects heart and lung health, researching how pollution mixtures and their associated health affects vary by location, and looking at how air pollution affects the human body during different life stages.

The four CLARCs will conduct cutting-edge research to answer a myriad of questions we have about air pollution. Questions such as: Are children born prematurely sensitive to air pollution, Can your morning commute make you sick, Does air pollution affect your child’s learning, or Does obesity make you susceptible to health effects of air pollution?

After hearing the EPA announcement about these centers and all the research projects they intend to conduct, I am looking forward to the day when I will actually know what I am breathing in – and what it is doing to my body – when I step outside after a long day of work and take a nice deep breath of fresh air.

About the author: Writer Sarah Blau is a student services contractor working with EPA’s science communication team.

Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in Greenversations are those of the author. They do not reflect EPA policy, endorsement, or action, and EPA does not verify the accuracy or science of the contents of the blog.

By John Senn

I love soccer. I’ve played since I was eight years old and was even able to go to the 2006 World Cup in Germany. But when I moved to New York City from Montana almost five years ago, not only did my vistas change from tall mountains to tall buildings, I also swapped grass soccer fields for turf fields, the norm for this area.

I was a little surprised to learn that the turf soccer fields that I played on every week—including during the summer when temperatures in Manhattan were well over 90 degrees—were among the hottest surfaces in the city because they absorbed and radiated heat more readily than other surfaces and could reach 160 degrees at field level. Working out at those temperatures, even for a short time, could easily lead to dehydration and heat exhaustion. (The Mayo Clinic has more information on how your body deals with extreme heat and how best to deal with it.)

Polluted air, an issue in the New York metropolitan area most of the year, only compounds the stress your body faces from working out in hot weather. Not only are your heart and lungs working harder, you’re breathing polluted air at an increased rate.

Breathing polluted air can make your eyes and nose burn. It can irritate your throat and make breathing difficult. In fact, pollutants like tiny airborne particles and ground level ozone can trigger respiratory problems, especially for people with asthma. Today, nearly 30 million adults and children in the United States have been diagnosed with asthma. Asthma sufferers can be severely affected by air pollution. Air pollution can also aggravate health problems for the elderly and others with heart or respiratory diseases.

When it’s hot out, check EPA’s AirNow website to monitor the air quality of your area by typing in your zip code. You’ll be able to see if any pollutants are at high levels for that day and if you or members of your family (some people are more sensitive to changes in air quality, especially young children, the elderly and people with asthma) should take any precautions before heading outside.

Most people wear shin guards as a precaution when taking the soccer field. Knowing the air quality before you head outside for a workout, especially when it’s hot out, is another way to make sure your workout does more good than harm.

About the author: John Senn started working at EPA as a summer fellow in 2006 and is now a press officer handling issues related to Superfund sites, water issues and emergency response efforts.

Editor’s Note: The opinions expressed in Greenversations are those of the author. They do not reflect EPA policy, endorsement, or action, and EPA does not verify the accuracy or science of the contents of the blog.

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays.
By Rachel Canfield

When Representative Donna Edwards (Maryland’s 4th District) addressed the audience at EPA’s Air Science 40 seminar, Clean Air for All? Air Quality across Social and Spatial Lines, she talked about how she and her young son would wait for the bus every morning close to a highway.

On July 21, government, industry, academic and the non-profit audiences gathered as scientists shared their research on how air pollution impacts populations based on social, environmental and geographic differences.

Marie Lynn Miranda, Ph.D., from Duke University’s Children’s Environmental Health Initiative presented EPA-funded research that looks at the shared effect of social and environmental factors, including air pollution, on pregnancy outcomes.

Miranda described studies that show exposure to fine particulate matter (PM) decreased birth weight, and exposures to ozone and PM in combination weakens lung function in newborns. The effects of these air pollution exposures don’t always end at infancy and can lead to more long-term health consequences. According to Miranda, social stress and closeness to busy roads can also increase health risks for pregnant mothers and their babies.

EPA scientist Alan Vette, Ph.D. emphasized how distance from roadways affects air pollution exposure and health, presenting some of EPA’s Near-Road Research Program’s work. Vette explained the importance of such studies, as over 45 million Americans live near an airport, railroad or highway.

Vette described a number of traffic-related air pollution studies EPA conducts throughout the U.S., including a new, collaborative study with the University of Michigan and Community Action Against Asthma. The study, the Near-Road Exposures to Urban Air Pollutants Study, will look at how vehicle emissions affect asthmatic children who live near busy roadways in Detroit, Michigan. According to Vette, asthma rates in Detroit are 29%–three times the national average.

As they spoke, I wondered what my house’s distance from the highway is and how often I hear a train whistle when I walk through campus. Air pollution doesn’t affect everyone in the same ways, our locations and lifestyles create unique situations for our lungs and interesting scientific challenges for EPA scientists to uncover.

About the author: Rachel Canfield is a student services contractor in EPA’s Office of Research and Development. She is a graduate student in communication at North Carolina State University.

Each week we write about the science behind environmental protection. Previous Science Wednesdays.

A little while ago I visited Dr. Joel Schwartz in his office at the Harvard School of Public Health to find out about his research findings as part of the EPA-funded Harvard Particulate Matter Research Center.

He described enough research topics to fill a dozen blog posts, so I’ll cover one that I found particularly interesting—his research on the role of genes in determining how people respond to air pollution.

Every cell in a person’s body contains all the 25,000-odd genes that make up DNA, Schwartz said. So why then, he asked, don’t your skin cells make liver enzymes?

The answer, I learned, is that we have mechanisms in our bodies that either turn off or turn on our genes.

I couldn’t help but ask: what does this have to do with air pollution?

To answer my question, Schwartz posed an example that seemed to come out of left field—identical twins.

“If you look at identical twins when they are two years old and when they are 60, the 60 year olds don’t look as much alike. But, they have all the same genes! The difference is that some genes got turned on more and some got turned on less and as a result, they didn’t age the same way,” he said, excitedly.

Dr. Joel Schwartz

Schwartz explained that the external environment must have some sort of impact on how their genes were activated.

Studies have shown that methyl groups (a carbon and three hydrogen atoms) stuck onto the beginning of a gene can prevent that gene from being turned on, a process called methylation. The number of methyl groups stuck to a gene has been shown to change over time and seems to be related, somehow, to aging and disease.

“We asked the question, does air pollution act, in part, by doing some of that? Clearly environmental things are changing these methylation patterns…maybe that’s part of what’s going on with air pollution,” he explained.

Schwartz and his colleagues analyzed methylation patterns in a large group of people and looked for associations with air pollution. Their results, recently published in The American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, show that particles from traffic DO indeed change a methylation pattern at certain places in the genome.

“We’re starting to see signals that particles in the air can change the methylation of DNA,” Schwartz said.

This finding is a major preliminary step toward understanding whether air pollution makes people sick by acting on their genes.

About the Author: Becky Fried is a science writer with EPA’s National Center for Environmental Research, part of the Office of Research and Development.