Although doctors warn that air pollution is causing major health risks in St. Louis, there are currently no St. Louisans on the Missouri Air Conservation Commission – the group charged with carrying out the Clean Air Act.
“St. Louis-area residents breathe the most polluted air in the whole state,” said John Hickey of the Missouri Sierra Club. “Our area should be represented on the state commission that is responsible for enforcing the Clean Air Act, but there is no one from St. Louis city or St. Louis County, or St. Charles County or Franklin County, on this commission.”
The Sierra Club is urging the governor, who appoints the commissioners for four-year terms, to choose people who will “stand up for clean air,” particularly from the Kansas City or St. Louis areas. The state Senate approves the governor’s appointees, and in the past the Senate failed to give a hearing to Gov. Jay Nixon’s appointment of a St. Louis environmental lawyer. Hence, the Sierra Club is calling on the Senate to stop blocking these appointments.
The Natural Resources Defense Council in a 2015 report named St. Louis one of the “sneeziest and wheeziest” cities in the country. And that has much to do with the fact that St. Louis has high levels of ozone smog.
Several counties in the St. Louis region have failed to meet the Environmental Protection Agency’s air quality standards. The counties that are in non-compliance with the EPA’s regulations are Franklin, Jefferson, St. Charles and St. Louis in metro St. Louis, along with Jackson in metro Kansas City. Carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired plants in these counties are a major contributor of greenhouse gases, which the EPA says is ultimately causing climate change.
The report states that carbon pollution increases temperatures and can make ragweed produce more pollen over a longer season.
“This is bad news for allergy sufferers and asthmatics, because both ragweed pollen and high levels of ozone smog can trigger asthma attacks and worsen allergic symptoms in adults and children,” the report states.
The report found that 109 million people in our country are acutely exposed to both worsening respiratory allergies and asthma associated with climate change. In Missouri alone, nearly one million people now live with asthma or chronic respiratory disease.
“Kids in St. Louis city face triple the rate of hospitalizations for asthma, compared to kids in Missouri as a whole,” Hickey said. “That is wrong.”
In St. Louis city, the childhood prevalence of asthma is double that of the state, 19.6 percent versus 10.1 percent, according to the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services’ Missouri Asthma Prevention and Control Program.
Asthma has a significantly higher impact on the African-American community. African Americans made up 11.9 percent of Missouri’s population in the years 2007 through 2009, but accounted for nearly 30.1 percent of all deaths due to asthma, according to the department.
Physicians with the Mound City Medical Forum, the Missouri affiliate of the National Medical Association, said that climate change is making their patients sicker.
“We are concerned how climate change is causing us to have to provide more asthma and allergy medication to our patients at younger and younger ages,” said Huldah Blamoville, president of the forum and associate professor at the Washington University and Saint Louis University schools of medicine. “Additionally, carbon pollution that causes climate change is linked to childhood asthma attacks, cardio vascular disease and other respiratory illnesses.”
A recent national study of African-American physicians conducted by George Mason University and the National Medical Association – the leading voice for African-American physicians in the United States – showed that 88 percent of physicians surveyed are seeing health effects of climate change in their patients.
Aside from general health, asthma also affects children’s academic outcomes, said Kelly M. Harris, a doctoral education student at Washington University.
Across the country, asthma is the number one reason that children miss school. Harris completed a study, which has not yet been published, that found greater rates of asthma among children who lived closer to the 600 industrial facilities surrounding St. Louis. School attendance is also lower in those areas.
Mound City’s analysis suggests that the health benefits from reducing particles and smog could save 1,200 lives and prevent 310 hospitalizations in Missouri from 2020-2030 alone, Blamoville said.
The Sierra Club argues that it’s the Missouri Air Conservation Commission’s job to fix the problem.
“If you add up the deaths from asthma, stroke and heart attack – the three main ways you die from air pollution – the death toll is equivalent to an airplane full of people crashing every year,” Hickey said. “Can you imagine if we had a plane crash every year and the commission in charge did nothing about it? People would be outraged.”
The commission consists of seven seats, but only five are currently filled – and those seats are supposed to represent labor, agriculture, industry and the general public. However, MissouriNet reported that there are some inconsistencies with how the commissioners are categorized.
Gary Pendergrass, the commission chairman, is listed as representing the “general public.” However, in his position at GEO Engineers, he works on capturing and storing carbon dioxide generated by coal-burning power plants.
Board member Jack Baker is listed as representing agriculture. He works for the Association of Missouri Electrical Cooperatives, a group representing utilities which operate at least two coal-fired power plants.
Vice chairman David Zimmermann represents labor and is employed at the Sheet Metal Workers Local 36 in St. Louis. However, Hickey argues that Zimmerman lives in Crystal City, which is 35 miles from the city’s center and near Festus.
“He doesn’t represent St. Louis,” Hickey said.
Mark Garnett, president of Garnett Wood Products, represents the industry. Jack Jones of Columbia also has a general public seat and was appointed by Nixon.
The Mound City Medical Forum believes that negative health effects are expected to worsen if carbon dioxide concentrations keep rising and climate change continues unchecked.
“Our state can curb this harmful carbon pollution and create good-paying clean energy jobs by investing in energy efficiency and renewable sources of power like wind and solar,” Blamoville said. “It’s a win-win for our health and our economy.”
