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Environment |
Article published Thursday, September 4, 2003
Refinery opponents to aid health studies
A small group of East Toledo and Oregon
residents campaigning since January to get Sunoco MidAmerica to
reduce emissions at its Woodville Road refinery decided last night
to try to aid in two studies regarding heath problems in the
area.
The Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry in
Atlanta, which is a sister agency of the U.S. Centers for Disease
Control and Prevention, is studying the neighborhood health risk
posed by emissions from the Sunoco refinery. More than 57,000 people
live within three miles of the refinery.
The Ohio Department
of Health hopes to determine if the area is a cancer cluster by
meeting with elected officials, residents, and American Cancer
Society members within a month. The refinery and other sources of
industrial pollution will be studied.
Beatrice Miringu,
Toledo-area director of Ohio Citizen Action, said she wants members
of the "good neighbor campaign," who met at the Locke branch of the
Toledo-Lucas County Public Library in East Toledo, to assist the
Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry by taking air
samples at times when the refinery increases its
emissions.
The group wants reductions from Oregon’s BP
refinery too, but it’s focusing on Sunoco because of its proximity
to a residential area, Ms. Miringu said.
Most of the eight
people who attended last night’s meeting described problems they or
others have experienced, which included noxious odors, asthma, and
other respiratory ailments.
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