Airports: Deadly Neighbors
by Charles Miller

As anyone living near an airport can attest, jet aircraft noise is a serious physiological and psychological health hazard. Less known are the health hazards posed by the release of airport chemicals. A Boeing physicist once described the pollution from the take-off of a single 747 as being like "setting the local gas station on fire and flying it over your head."

The Natural Resources Defense Council and the US-Citizens Aviation Watch (US-CAW) have gathered troubling information about the massive amounts of hazardous and toxic emissions involved in the operation of airports.

A partial list of chemicals associated with airport operations includes: methyl bromide, benzene, trichloroethylene, toluene, nitrogen monoxide, nitric acid, sulfuric acid, carbon monoxide and 3-nitrobenzanthrone.

According to chemist Hitomi Suzuki of Kyoto University, 3- nitrobenzanthrone may be the most hazardous compound ever tested for carcinogenicity. Many of the other chemicals listed are cancer-causing compounds.

Chicago's O'Hare International Airport, the world's busiest airport, is quite possibly the largest single point-source of man-made pollution in the world. In addition to pollution caused by aircraft, a vast amount of car and truck traffic is generated at or in the airport's vicinity.

According to the Alliance of Residents Concerning O'Hare (AReCO, a Chicago affiliate of US-CAW), "airports are under little or no regulation and need not report most emissions or adhere to most Clean Air Act standards."

While truck and auto pollution is thought to be the primary source of air pollution in the Chicago metro area, AReCO reports that aircraft and airport emissions produce "twice the amount of volatile organic materials per year than all the on-road vehicles at or near O'Hare."

On October 24, 1997, the Georgetown Crime Prevention and Community Council (a citizens' group that is also a member of US-CAW) sent Seattle officials a letter opposing expansion of Seattle's King County International Airport (KCIA). In their letter, the council cited records they had received from the Seattle- King County Department of Public Health in Washington state regarding the health of the people living "downwind" from KCIA.

Airport health impacts are usually hard to pin down, but in Seattle an entire affected neighborhood shares a single Zip Code (98108). This made it possible to check federal health records on an entire community of "downwinders." The results were chilling.

The public health records showed: a 57 percent higher asthma rate; a 28 percent higher pneumonia/influenza rate; a 26 percent higher respiratory disease rate; an 83 percent higher rate of pregnancy complications; statistically higher rates of genetic diseases; 50 percent more cases of infant mortality; 57 percent greater chance of heart disease; 36 percent higher rate for cancer death and a life expectancy of 70.4 - contrasted with 76 years for the average Seattle resident.

"Airports do virtually no reporting of large volumes of de-icing fluids (which are comprised of several toxic chemicals), fuel spills, oils, greases and other pollutants that regularly flow into nearby streams," reports AReCO. De- icing fluids represent hazards to water tables, streams and waste-water treatment plants.

The problem of airport pollution is not limited to the immediate vicinity of the airport. AReCO points out that the pollution "is shed over an enormous area surrounding a busy airport... in a radius of at least 24 miles and from an elevation of about 3,500 feet to the ground."

- Charles R. Miller, AReCO

What You Can Do: For more information about monitoring airport pollution in your area, contact Jack Saporito, US-CAW, Box 1702, Arlington Heights, IL 60006, (630) 415-3370, fax: (847) 506-0202.