PHOTO BY ELLIOTT ROBINSON. The census tract that includes almost all of the industrial plants in the city has a cancer risk three times the national average but only five people are recorded to live in the tract permanently. Other than City Point and the area around downtown, which have slightly less than twice the average national risk, the remainder of the city is average.

A study released by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has noted a section of Hopewell has three times the risk of cancer than the rest of the nation but that part of the city, per the 2000 Census, has a permanent population of five. City Point and parts of downtown also have a slightly higher risk than average but it is less than twice the average national risk.
This information came from the EPA’s 2002 National-Scale Air Toxics Assessment (NATA), released in June 2009. The 2002 information was used because it is the most up-to-date emissions data the EPA has for the entire nation, said Catherine C. Milbourn, senior press officer of the EPA Office of Media Relations.
“When you’re looking at long-term risk, [the data’s age] is not that important,” she said.
The area of the city that has the highest risk is a swath of land in the eastern end of the city, Census Tract 8208. It includes nearly all of the city’s industrial plants and begins roughly at the intersection of East Randolph Road and Terminal Street. It includes all of the industrial properties on both sides of Randolph Road beyond Winston Churchill Drive but includes neither the residential areas around Carter G. Woodson Middle School nor any of the residences on Terminal Street. It has a risk of cancer of 108 in a million, compared to the national average of 36 in a million.
“Air quality varies not only from city to city but from neighborhood to neighborhood,” Milbourn said.
In the neighboring census tract that consists mostly of the City Point area of town, 8201, had a population of about 1,500 in the 2000 Census and a cancer risk of 55 in a million. The census tract that includes downtown and out to 15th Avenue has a population of about 2,700 and a risk of 57 in a million. The remainder of the city is around the national average of 32 in a million.
In comparison, the area with the highest risk in Hopewell is identical to the risk in downtown Richmond around the state capitol. That portion of downtown Richmond also has a cancer risk of 108 in a million.
In Hopewell, the 8208 census tract mostly has chemicals from stationary sources, Milbourn said, instead of things being blown in from other areas or heavy vehicular traffic. Near the industrial plants, 82 percent of the pollutants come from major sources, defined by the 1970 Clear Air Act as stationary facilities that can or may emit 10 tons of any one toxic pollutant or 25 tons of more than one pollutant into the air a year.
The two largest amounts of chemicals recorded in the air in census tract 8208 were benzene, including its usage in gasoline, at 54 percent and acetaldehyde at 31 percent.
Around City Point, benzene was the highest air pollutant recorded by the EPA in 2002 at 52 percent and carbon tetrachloride was second at 13 percent.
In and around downtown, benzene was also the highest at 30 percent and arsenic compounds came in second at 28 percent. Air pollution came mostly from the background in this census tract. Background concentrations are defined by the EPA as from “natural sources, persistence in the environment of past years’ emissions and long-range transport from distant sources”
Along with the EPA, the Virginia Department of Environmental Quality and the Hopewell Clean Air Network have been collecting air samples throughout the city, particularly in City Point where there are complaints of bad smells. This is partially a result of the direction of prevailing winds in the city leading to City Point from the industries around Randolph Road. In February, the DEQ said most of the airborne chemicals in the city are below the state’s long-term air quality standards but they are in the process of taking a further look at the levels of acrolein and formaldehyde.
Although there are concerns about air quality throughout the city and its effects on human health, the increased cancer risk concentrated in the immediate area around the plants should not be a cause for alarm across the entire city or to draw conclusions about exposure, Milbourn said.
“It’s not the entire city, it’s just that one tract,” Milbourn said. “If you’re outside of that area, the risk really drops. The data needs to be put in context.”
Nationwide, said a press release from the EPA on the release of the NATA, 2 million people, less than one percent of the nation’s population, have increased cancer risks of greater than 100 in a million and benzene was the largest contributor to the increased risks. Despite that, since 1990, all toxic emissions have decreased throughout the country by 40 percent from all sources.
The data for Virginia and other states, compiled as an overlay for Google Earth, can be found under the link “2002 Results” in the sidebar of the EPA Web site for the study: www.epa.gov/nata2002.

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