Federal lawmakers are urging the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to conduct more research on pollution in the Metro East, as recommended by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention seven months ago.
The CDC completed an air pollution investigation in Sauget on May 1, focusing on emissions from the hazardous waste incinerator Veolia North America-Trade Waste Incineration.
In its final report, the public health agency stated that while it could provide some answers about community health impacts, inadequate data from the EPA prevented it from reaching other conclusions about the risks Metro East residents face today.
The CDC suggested the EPA consider returning to Sauget to conduct additional research, including long-term air monitoring and soil testing.
U.S. Sens. Tammy Duckworth and Dick Durbin and U.S. Rep. Nikki Budzinski sent a letter to the EPA this week urging it to implement those recommendations.
“Given the potential impacts that the Veolia facility could have on the health of our constituents, promptly understanding the full impact of this facility is essential,” they wrote.
The letter, dated Dec. 8, was addressed to EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin and Anne Vogel, who leads the regional EPA office overseeing the Metro East.
An EPA spokesperson did not immediately respond to a request for comment Wednesday regarding the lawmakers’ request.
What the CDC's Sauget investigation found
The CDC investigation in Sauget found that people exposed to airborne chemical substances known as volatile organic compounds for more than 30 years could face an increased lifetime risk of cancer.
The conclusion was based on one year of data from the early 1990s, collected on Little Avenue, about half a mile downwind of Veolia and less than half a mile downwind of Big River Zinc and Cerro, adjacent chemical manufacturers at the time.
However, the CDC could not definitively say whether people are currently being harmed by those substances, because the EPA collected new samples of volatile organic compounds over only three days in August 2021.
The EPA’s air monitoring for the Sauget investigation primarily focused on metals such as lead and mercury coming from Veolia between June 2021 and March 2022. Based on those findings, the CDC said people are unlikely to be harmed by the amount of metals in the air today.
The EPA did not monitor for other air pollutants that could be released by industries in Sauget, the CDC noted in its report.
When asked in May whether it would act on the CDC’s recommendations, the EPA told the Belleville News-Democrat it had not seen recent air quality data indicating residents are being exposed to unhealthy levels of air pollution from Veolia.
The agency said its air monitoring in 2021 and 2022 did not detect anything that would have short-term or long-term health effects on people living nearby.
In a May statement, Veolia’s Sauget site manager Lucas King said the facility’s operations are among the most highly regulated by the EPA.
“Veolia North America is committed to safe operations, ensuring our processes are in compliance with all applicable regulatory requirements, and protecting the health of the communities where we operate,” King wrote. “... Most of the 165 employees who work at the facility live and raise families in the local community, which is one reason why we hold ourselves to high standards for environmental safety and compliance.”
The CDC’s Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry conducted the investigation at Duckworth’s request. It is a public health agency within the CDC that responds when communities are exposed to natural and manmade hazardous substances.
An estimated 878 people live within a one-mile radius of Veolia, according to the CDC report, which cited U.S. Census data. The closest residential areas are about half a mile southeast of the facility in Cahokia Heights.
“The underlying public health threat we uncovered in this ATSDR consultation and the need for better, more consistent data was not solved by EPA’s temporary, limited air monitoring conducted over a 10-month period,” the lawmakers wrote in the Dec. 8 letter. “That is why we are calling on EPA to address ATSDR’s recommendations with a sustained response that addresses our country’s lack of robust, permanent monitoring systems in communities located near industrial facilities.”
Lawmakers request more monitoring
In their letter, Duckworth, Durbin and Budzinski “strongly urged” the EPA to take the following steps recommended by the CDC:
- Install long-term, community-based air monitoring, including in downwind communities, to measure volatile organic compounds in Sauget and Cahokia Heights.
- Require continuous in-stack monitoring as part of a new permit for the Veolia facility.
- Perform soil testing in residential areas closest to industries that have historically released lead into the air.
- Test the surface water, groundwater, and locally caught fish in the immediate area around the Veolia facility.
- Provide assistance and expertise to state and local public health agencies to promote voluntary blood lead testing of children in Sauget and Cahokia Heights, to help protect them from potential exposure to local soil, lead-based paint and lead service lines.
- Provide assistance and expertise to regulatory and health agencies in promoting lead-based paint testing and abatement programs in Sauget and Cahokia Heights.
The lawmakers told the EPA that citizens in Sauget and Cahokia Heights have “borne the brunt of heavy industrial pollution and historical lack of investments.”
“EPA has the power to help us right this wrong,” they wrote in their letter. “However, we will never achieve this goal if EPA fails to establish a network of comprehensive environmental data monitoring systems to empower our nation to determine whether, and where, public health threats exist.”
Editor's note: This story was originally published by the Belleville News-Democrat. Lexi Cortes is a reporter for the BND, a news partner of St. Louis Public Radio.
