TOXIC AIR

Dr Theresa Rodriguez-Moodie is calling on the authorities to take local air quality issues more seriously by boosting regulations and sanctioning violators as millions around the world continue to die from the public health threat annually.

Across Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC), a staggering 84 per cent of urban populations live in areas plagued by poor air quality.

According to Allen Blackman, sector economic adviser at the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), approximately 90 per cent of the world’s population lives in communities that do not meet the World Health Organization’s (WHO) air quality standards.

He noted that globally, a single type of air pollutant – a fine particulate matter (PM2.5) – is responsible for five to nine million premature deaths annually. Within the LAC region, PM2.5 causes 169,000 premature deaths per year.

Rodriquez-Moodie, CEO of the Jamaica Environment Trust (JET), bemoaned that currently, Jamaica does not have any way of quantifying the number of premature fatalities experienced as it relates to poor air quality. According to her, the Government has never conducted a thorough health impact assessment to ascertain how the bauxite industry, for example, has impacted air quality and people’s health.

“So, that tells you, in my opinion, how serious we consider these things,” Rodriguez-Moodie said.

Consequently, the larger problem, she said, is that Jamaica must effectively handle these issues, expedite amendments to the standards and regulations governing air quality, enhance its oversight and implementation of current regulations governing air quality, and undertake public education and awareness campaigns about the dangers associated with poor air quality.

“I think that we are required, with the world recognising this as a major public health issue ... [to make] sure that we don’t allow industries, we don’t allow the public to violate that right, because we have a right to a healthier environment, we have a right to clean air,” she said.

The WHO defines air pollution as a complex mixture of solid particles, liquid droplets, and gases that can originate from a variety of sources, including household fuel burning, traffic exhausts, open burning of waste, and agricultural operations.

The most prevalent air pollutants are particulate matters (PM10 and PM2.5), ozone (O3), nitrogen dioxide (NO2), carbon monoxide (CO), sulphur dioxide (SO2), and lead (Pb). Both brief and prolonged exposure to each of these contaminants can lead to health issues.

Every year, ambient air pollution is thought to be the cause of more 4.2 million deaths. The term describes the existence of one or more compounds that have the potential to have an adverse effect on public health when present at a concentration of or for a longer period of time than their normal levels.

Speaking on September 24 at an IDB webinar on improving urban air quality, Blackman said that following decades of industrialisation, urbanisation and motorisation, air pollution is now a global health issue.

He said that in addition to premature death, air pollution causes a wide range of illnesses, including bronchitis, pneumonia, asthma, and lung cancer.

Meanwhile, Juan Castillo, regional air quality adviser at the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), said that most conversations about these deaths centred around non-communicable diseases like cardiovascular, respiratory, or chronic obstruction pulmonary disease, as well as stroke, cancers, and infectious respiratory diseases.

But these, he said, were “just the tip of the iceberg”.

“We are talking about mortality ... . Exposure to air pollutants, the weight of the evidence is showing us that almost every organ in the body is affected by air pollution,” he said.

NOT ENOUGH ATTENTION

Rodriguez-Moodie asserted that one of Jamaica’s biggest problems is having the reports made by citizens on air-quality issues to be given more attention and treated seriously by the relevant authorities.

In a recent interview with The Gleaner, she stated that one of the reasons why she is so concerned is because many of the complaints JET receives from citizens are connected to air quality.

These individuals, she said, ask for help and JET has been writing to the regulatory bodies with responsibility for air quality such as the National Environment and Planning Agency (NEPA), the Jamaica Fire Brigade, and the environment health unit of the Ministry of Health & Wellness on behalf of these concerned residents.

She continued that to get action from these agencies has been “like a dance”.

Rodriguez-Moodie said dust nuisance caused by road and construction projects, bauxite mining, and illegal burning were the main complaints.

“A lot of people feel like it’s a waste of time to make these complaints,” she said.

Rodriguez-Moodie shared that an elderly woman in Red Hills, St Andrew, who contacted JET for assistance, after complaining repeatedly about smoke and unlawful burning to NEPA has had her health issues worsened and no resolution to her environmental concerns.

“We have issues in our air quality regulations which we have been pointing out for decades and it still hasn’t changed, so, I don’t think we take the issue of air quality seriously enough because it’s a major health issue but it’s so difficult to get action on different air quality-related issues,” she said.

The Natural Resources Conservation Authority Air Quality Regulations (NRCA, 2006) and the NRCA (Ambient Air Quality Standards) Regulations, 1996 provide the framework for regulating emissions. They are to guarantee that the ambient air quality protects human and environmental health.

However, the existing regulations to control dust pollution are insufficient, Rodriguez-Moodie said, as they do not measure PM2.5, –“the smallest dust particles that get deep into your lungs and cause major issues”.

In April, NEPA responded to emailed questions sent by The Gleaner on local and global standards, while some areas are above these standards,” they said.

The Spanish Town Road region, which stretches between Three and Six Miles, is one of the sites where the local ambient standards for particles were exceeded, according to the NEPA. The primary causes of this include the effects of vehicle emissions, open burning in the communities along the corridor, fugitive dust from the Riverton dump (even in the absence of significant fires there), and the presence of industrial facilities in the area, as one of the regions with the poorest air quality.

They said that although the Kingston Metropolitan Area’s air quality has improved in some regions, primarily as a result of better source management, the use of cleaner fuels, and other factors, the air quality in some locations has continued to decline as a result of ongoing open burning activities.

The agency operates 10 air-quality monitors, which are located in the Kingston Metropolitan Area, Portmore, Spanish Town, Mandeville and Montego Bay.

NEPA stated that expanding the air quality monitoring network to nationwide coverage is its medium- to long-term goal, as stated in its 10-year strategic action plan. This entails having a sufficient number of monitoring stations situated in key areas as well as the appropriate hardware and software to deliver information in real time.

The Gleaner contacted NEPA more recently on September 30. Up until press time last night, it had not provided a response to a number of questions, including on the monitoring of PM 10 and PM 2.5.

Castillo from PAHO acknowledged that there was an issue of governance when dealing with of air quality. He continued that typically, developing countries have less capacities to address this issue and as such poor air quality becomes a huge impact on public health.

Local governments can take a number of measures to mitigate these effects, according to Castillo, including reducing emission sources, encouraging clean home energy, lowering population exposure, and implementing urban planning systems. These measures will enable population protection from primary emission sources, the industry as a whole, and its mobile sources.

asha.wilks@gleanerjm.com