High Risk of Cancer Found Near Santa Ana Food Plant

By DOUGLAS JEHL

June 9, 1989 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

WASHINGTON —

Residents who live near 205 pollution-spewing industrial plants in 37 states may face more than a 1-in-1,000 chance of getting cancer from the emissions--far above the risk level regarded as acceptable by the Environmental Protection Agency, according to preliminary government data released by Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles).

Among the plants whose toxic emissions appear to be most hazardous is a Unocal facility in La Mirada. There, the lifetime cancer risk to the most-affected persons may be greater than one in 100, according to statistics garnered from an internal EPA data base.

Four other Southern California plants were listed as posing a significant cancer risk. They were in Santa Ana, Los Angeles, Irwindale and Vernon.

According to the EPA report, residents living near Cal-Compack Foods Inc. in Santa Ana faced a 1-in-1,000 chance of developing cancer because of ethylene oxide fumes that escaped or were released.

Health officials also said the highly explosive chemical may cause pregnancy problems and birth defects in newborns.

EPA Administrator William K. Reilly warned strongly that such estimates might be severely flawed, saying the data was not intended to assess public health risks at individual sites. The information was intended only to help officials compare and rank sources of toxic pollutants across the country.

Cal-Compack officials said Thursday that the report, based on 1987 data, unfairly implies that its food-processing facility in the 4900 block of West 1st Street is a heavy polluter.

A company spokesman said measures have since been taken to reduce chemical emissions at the firm, a subsidiary of Beatrice-Hunt Wesson.

A company spokesman said ethylene oxide is used to sterilize equipment at the plant, which produces a line of food ingredients, most notably chili powder.

Frank Quevedo, director of corporate relations for Beatrice-Hunt Wesson, said: “We are clearly meeting all required local, state and federal air standards. To even remotely imply otherwise is just not accurate.”

Nevertheless, the overall picture presented by the data strongly suggests that--without violating any environmental law--industries across the country can release cancer-causing chemicals in concentrations sufficient to pose an extraordinary risk to public health, Waxman said.

The congressman said he released the data to dramatize the need for legislation that would severely tighten federal regulations on toxic emissions. While reiterating that the data was still preliminary, Waxman contended that it was appropriate to make it public.

“The seriousness of the risk before us cannot be dismissed,” Waxman said.

The statistics, he added, represent a “stunning demonstration of the urgency of the public health threat” from unregulated toxic emissions.

EPA estimates show that 2.7 billion pounds of toxic chemicals are emitted annually. While federal agencies recognize more than 100 chemicals released as potentially hazardous, current EPA regulations impose ceilings on emissions of just seven of them.

Among the carcinogenic pollutants unregulated when emitted by industries into the air are butadiene, produced by rubber manufacturers; chloroform, produced by the pulp and paper industry, and ethylene oxide, produced in sterilization processes.

In evaluating harmful chemicals, the EPA generally considers a cancer risk higher than 1 in 1 million as unacceptable. The estimate reflects the risk for the most exposed person living near a source, based on a lifetime of inhaling the pollutant.

The disclosure by Waxman and others of the cancer risk data--which the EPA had gathered but not released publicly--comes as an anticipatory salvo to the impending battle to revamp toxic emissions regulations as part of an overhauled Clean Air Act.

While the Bush Administration has emphatically agreed that current restrictions on airborne toxic substances are inadequate, the proposed Clean Air Act that the President plans to unveil Monday is not expected to impose standards as strict as advocated by Waxman and other environmentalists in Congress.

In particular, the Administration plan is expected to require at most that manufacturers adopt the maximum cleanup technology currently available at an affordable cost. By comparison, the anti-toxics legislation introduced by Waxman and others would require industry to incorporate new cleanup technologies as they were developed.

The principal sponsors of the legislation, Rep. Mickey Leland (D-Tex.) and Rep. Guy V. Molinari (R-N.Y.), also defended the release of the preliminary cancer-risk data.

Leland said: “We don’t want to exaggerate that data and cause needless panic, . . . but it is nonetheless most significant.”

The figures indicated that 205 facilities posed cancer risks that may exceed 1 in 1,000 for the most exposed individuals. Forty-five of these facilities had maximum individual risks of greater than 1 in 100, and one--a Texaco plant in Port Neches, Tex.-- had at least a 1-in-10 risk.

The congressmen’s decision to release the provocative data brought an angry outcry from industry representatives.

“To imply that these estimates depict the real risks of living near one of the plants is not just exaggeration but an outright misuse of data to deliberately alarm people,” said a statement from the Chemical Manufacturers Assn.

CALIFORNIA’S TOXIC POLLUTERS

These are California industrial plants identified by the federal Environmental Protection Agency as among those releasing toxic chemicals with a severe cancer risk.

Cancer Risk: At least one in 10

None

At least one in 100, but less than 10 in 100

Unocal, La Mirada

At least one in 1,000, but less than 1 in 100

Dow Chemical, Pittsburg

Louisiana Pacific, Samoa

Louisiana Pacific, Antioch

Simpson Paper, Anderson

Shell/Carson, Los Angeles

American Pharmaceutical, Irwindale

Cal-Compack Foods, Santa Ana