Toxic Metal Concentrations Found in Air at Bell Gardens’ Suva Schools

Tests have revealed relatively high concentrations of a toxic metal in the air around Suva elementary and intermediate schools, and air quality officials are recommending that two chrome-plating factories take swift action to alleviate the problem.

Air tests conducted in January, February and March in and around the schools detected unacceptably high levels of hexavalent chromium, a byproduct of chrome plating that causes cancer with long-term exposure, a spokesman for the South Coast Air Quality Management District said last week.

“The short-term concentrations are high but they’re not in the emergency range,” AQMD spokesman Art Davidson said. “There’s no emergency need for evacuation, but it’s above the level we’d like to see.”

Despite the assurances, the emissions are a biting concern for school personnel, who have had eight miscarriages involving at least two deformed fetuses since April, 1987, a spokeswoman said. Another teacher ended her pregnancy after she found out her fetus was deformed.

Hexavalent chromium has been known to cause cancer in workers in chrome factories, said Dr. Paul Papanek, chief of the county Department of Health Services’ toxics epidemiology program. It also has caused miscarriages and birth defects in animals exposed to high doses, but it never has been shown to do the same in humans, he said.

Plan Neighborhood Survey

School officials and community volunteers were to perform a neighborhood survey this weekend to pinpoint any health problems that could be related to the emissions.

The AQMD used computer projections based on its air tests to determine the risk the emissions posed to students and people living near Chrome Crankshaft Co. and J & S Chrome Plating Co. The plants abut the schools, with residential areas to the north, west and south.

If the average concentration at the schools was breathed for 24 hours a day, every day for 70 years, it is projected it would produce 37 to 450 additional cancer cases per million people, an AQMD report said. The light industrial area just east of the schools is the most heavily impacted area. There, the excess cancer risk ranges from 630 to 7,700 cases per million, the report said.

Chrome Crankshaft and J & S Chrome have been permitted to discharge hexavalent chromium into the air since the 1960s.

The AQMD is proposing that both plants install 50-foot-tall exhaust stacks to discharge the hexavalent chromium higher in the atmosphere, where it would mix with clean air and be diluted before reaching breathing levels.

“The current stack configuration is near the ground and pointed downward near the breathing zone,” Davidson said.

The AQMD also is recommending that Chrome Crankshaft, which is emitting the most hexavalent chromium, install the best available emissions reduction equipment.

If the stacks are installed and other control measures employed as suggested by the AQMD, the maximum cancer risk would be reduced by 98.9% to the range of 6.9 to 84 cases per million people exposed continuously for 70 years, according to the report.

Meeting Planned

Davidson said AQMD officials would meet with representatives of J & S Chrome and Chrome Crankshaft to seek the changes.

David Davies, vice president of Chrome Crankshaft, said he had not seen the AQMD report, which was released Thursday. But he said his firm would work to comply with any recommendations.

“We intend to take care of what needs to be done,” Davies said. “We’re trying to run a responsible business here and we don’t want anyone to be hurt here, either.”

James Mancuso, president of J & S Chrome, said he could not comment until he had seen the report.

A spokeswoman representing the staffs of the Suva schools said a severe reduction or elimination of the emissions must accompany the dilution sought by installing the exhaust stacks.

“It’s just going to be dispersed into the greater community,” said Roberta Swanson, an eighth-grade teacher at Suva Intermediate. “Dispersing it more doesn’t make us feel more confident. It’s just not an honorable solution to throw it around somewhere else.”

The pollution problem was first detected last October, when the state Air Resources Board took air samples near the schools and found ground-level concentrations of hexavalent chromium ranging from 10 to 40 nanograms per cubic meter of air. Studies indicate that long-term or lifetime exposure to one nanogram of hexavalent chromium per cubic meter of air will result in 12 to 150 additional cancer cases per million people, said Cliff Popejoy, an air pollution specialist with the state Air Resources Board. A nanogram is one billionth of a gram.

Follow-Up Testing

In follow-up testing, the maximum concentration of hexavalent chromium detected during a six-hour period at the schools was 13 nanograms, according to an AQMD report. A computer model projected an annual worst case concentration of 240 nanograms per cubic meter east of the schools.

Federal regulations limit exposure of chrome-plating workers to 50 micrograms--or 50,000 nanograms--per cubic meter over an eight-hour period.

Health and air quality officials briefed school administrators and teachers on the potential health problem in January while air monitoring continued. Concerns grew the following month when two teachers miscarried severely deformed fetuses.

A third teacher had terminated her pregnancy last September when she found out the fetus she was carrying was deformed. A staff survey turned up six other miscarriages since April, 1987, Swanson said. It was not immediately known how many of those miscarriages involved deformed fetuses. Six other teachers are pregnant and expect to give birth this summer, she said.

The county health department is studying the miscarriages and deformities to determine if they are related to the hexavalent chromium emissions, Papanek said. The county also has helped the staffs of the schools to prepare the community survey.

Papanek said his office has received reports from school officials and residents of several birth defects in children in the area surrounding the plants.

“There’s the allegation that there are a lot of birth defects out there,” Papanek said. “We want to get those cases verified.”

The California Air Resources Board in January, 1986, designated hexavalent chromium a toxic air contaminant that warranted strict control. State and local air pollution authorities are gearing up to sharply reduce the amount of the metal that is released into the air.

Throughout Basin

Because of industry, hexavalent chromium is present in minute amounts in the air throughout the Los Angeles Basin. Background levels of the heavy metal in the Los Angeles area range in concentration from just over 3 nanograms to 11 nanograms per cubic meter of air, according to an AQMD report.

Emissions of hexavalent chromium from most sources in the Los Angeles Basin have been controlled as part of a general category of pollutants called particulates. Particulates also include dust and other relatively innocuous pollutants, officials said.

Neither chromium plant is exceeding its particulate limit, Davidson said.

In February, the California Air Resources Board adopted a model rule to stringently control hexavalent chromium as a separate and highly toxic pollutant. Under the rule, industry eventually will be required to remove 95% to 99.8% of the heavy metal from its emissions.

State law requires local agencies to adopt an equal or more stringent rule by August 18. The board of the AQMD will consider passage of a local rule--identical to the state model--at its May 6 meeting.

J & S Chrome would meet the more stringent standards with its current pollution control equipment, Davidson said. Nevertheless, the AQMD wants the taller exhaust stack to lessen the local effect of the emissions.

Chrome Crankshaft would not meet the new standards and it eventually will be required to install emission controls as well as a 50-foot stack.

Even though the local rule has not been approved, the AQMD may be able to compel the two plants to act based on a regulation that prohibits emissions that pose a danger to the public health, said Ed Camarena, the AQMD’s deputy executive officer for operations.

“We are committed to bringing these levels down as quickly as possible,” Camarena said. “We believe they’re going to be cooperative. If they are not, we will vigorously pursue legal action to require the mitigation measures.”