With the recent revelation that heavy metals contaminated the air of Southeast and North Portland neighborhoods, residents on the north side of the Columbia River may be asking themselves: Have scientists found anything like that in Vancouver?
The short answer is no, but Clark County has its own pollution issues to contend with.
Portland’s pollution was pinpointed by a U.S. Forest Service Research Station study that, in 2013, collected moss samples from 346 sites around the city. Initially, the scientists were focused on pollution from wood stoves and fossil fuels, but an inexpensive heavy-metals test also was conducted.
The study found cadmium and arsenic levels at 50 and 150 times, respectively, above the state’s benchmark levels. Despite their emissions, the two glass companies that were releasing the materials were operating within Oregon law, which has less specific air pollutant rules when compared to Washington state.
“Oregon’s air toxics program is based on a geographic approach. They find out where the air pollution is bad and they look for ways to improve it,” Uri Papish, executive director of the Southwest Washington Clean Air Agency, said.
According to Forest Service spokeswoman Yasmeen Sands, researchers don’t have information on whether the pollution reached Vancouver because no sampling was done here.
But officials at the Southwest Washington Clean Air Agency say the odds of those contaminants reaching Vancouver are slim.
“Metals are heavier and they settle out quicker and gravity is going to pull them to the ground,” said Paul Mairose, chief engineer at the agency. “The chance you’re going to be exposed in Vancouver to some potentially high concentrations of metals coming from Portland is not likely.”
Washington’s air quality laws make it unlikely, but not impossible, that a local company could be producing potentially dangerous levels of pollution without the state catching on pretty quickly, Mairose said.
Papish said how Oregon and Washington regulate emissions differ in a way that gives his agency more authority over polluters than Oregon gives its Department of Environmental Quality.
“Washington is more stringent in terms of air toxics,” Papish said. “We’ve looked. We inventory toxic air pollutants at all our permitted facilities so we would know if there were high levels or not — and we don’t have high levels of cadmium, arsenic or chromium.”
Mairose said the state requires companies to use the best available control technology to catch as much of whatever pollutants they emit. The review and permitting process requires companies to figure out the most cost-effective way to collect the most pollutants.
“The goal is to get most bang for the buck,” he said.
Not only does Washington state make companies control what they’re emitting, but most residents of Southwest Washington also have the benefit of their homes being far away from most industrial facilities. However, Mairose also said it’s not uncommon for the agency to stumble on companies that have been around for years and operating without a permit.
Generally speaking, Clark County has good air quality, Mairose said, but the greatest local risk to people’s health are freeways. Vehicles emit compounds such as nitrogen oxides, sulfur dioxides and carbon monoxide, and diesel smoke carries known carcinogens such as benzine.
“Within a thousand feet of a freeway, there are all kinds of air toxics,” Papish said. “If you’re exposed to all kinds of them.”
Another common problem is ozone, a compound of volatile organic compounds from a variety of sources and nitrogen that’s made in the atmosphere on hot summer days and can be damaging to the lungs, Mairose said.
