Air Regulators, Please Adopt Our Highways

The Adopt-a-Highway program has had success in removing litter from our roadways. Even though our roadways may be prettier due to the lack of litter, a harm related to roads exists that in many ways is more frightening.  The harm emanates from the noxious stew of pollutants from the cars and trucks that rumble down our highways each day. 

A barrage of studies have highlighted the major impacts on the health and welfare of residents associated with living in close proximity to highways.  For example, a recent study from researchers at the University of Southern California (“USC”) found that artery wall thickening among people living within 100 meters of a Los Angeles highway progressed twice as quickly as those who lived farther away. Another Southern California study from the USC research team documented the impairment of normal lung development from long term exposure to highway pollution among children between the ages of 10 and 18. 

This severe public health issue impacts many throughout the country. The Environmental Protection Agency estimates that 35 million Americans live within 100 meters of major highways.  In the Los Angeles region, there are approximately 1.5 million people residing near major roadways.  Thus, significant populations are suffering from the lack of action to clean up the air in our highway corridors.  

But, we are seeing more and more attention given to this issue, and now it is just a matter of our regulators catching up.  A recent article in LA Weekly by Patrick Range McDonald highlighted this issue through the lens of the stylish lofts that are popping up around Los Angeles near our major highways.  I suppose the real question these days is how much more information needs to be generated before our agencies take serious action to protect the millions of residents impacted by living close to highways. 

Fed up with a lack of action, a coalition of health, environmental, and environmental justice groups asked top environmental officials in California to take this critical public health threat more seriously. The groups asked that our lead air pollution control agencies, including the California Air Resources Board, work together to more fully monitor the levels of pollution near highways.  Currently, there has been an unwillingness to even place long-term air pollution monitors near highways in California.  Apparently, some fear that we might uncover a public health issue that may be difficult to solve.   This approach is akin to going to a doctor and having that doctor not run a test for fear that she may have to prescribe some medicine.  We cannot continue to stick our heads in the sand and ignore the harm highway pollution is imposing on those living close to roads.  The stakes are just too high.