a020  0010  21 Jul 88
PM-Benzene Regulations,0554
EPA Seeks Comment On What Is 'Acceptable' Environmental Risk
By GUY DARST
Associated Press Writer
    WASHINGTON (AP) - The Environmental Protection Agency is asking the
public to help decide what are acceptable environmental risks and how
far such risks should be reduced if many jobs could be lost.
    A related question is: How much should the risks people face depend
on where they live?
    The agency is asking the questions for benzene, one of the nation's
most important chemicals, with nearly 12 billion pounds sold annually
for making gasoline, rubber, plastics, fibers and many other
chemicals.
    Benzene causes slightly more than an estimated three cases of
leukemia a year among people living near chemical plants. Regulatory
strategies being subjected to public comment would reduce that to one
case every other year, one case every 550 years or something in
between.
    Far more than three leukemias, a form of blood cancer, are at issue.
The answers will be used to regulate dozens of other hazardous air
pollutants EPA estimates could cause 2,000 cancers a year.
    Roughly half the population breathes industrial-source benzene,
almost all in tiny amounts. Those actually at risk are the very small
numbers of people living close to sources such as coke ovens,
refineries and other plants.
    Some 240,000 workers are covered by the Occupational Safety and
Health Administration, which permits much higher risks.
    EPA is under court order to revise its benzene regulations by
December. The order requires an initial determination of what is an
''acceptable'' risk, ignoring cost and feasibility, then a
determination of what the statutorily required ''adequate margin of
safety'' should be, taking into account cost and feasibility.
    The strictest of the agency's four possible approaches could mean
131 plants could close, throwing 30,000 to 40,000 people out of work.
Similarly, 44 coke byproduct plants might close, with the loss of
7,000 jobs.
    Meeting with reporters Wednesday, EPA Administrator Lee M. Thomas
said: ''When you make that first decision - acceptable risk -
depending on how you make it, you may have dramatic consequences in
plant closings and job loss. ... It's very difficult not to take them
into account.''
    ''I don't accept'' the inevitability of plant closings, Thomas said,
because the agency has not considered - and wants comment on - the
extent to which it can get companies to develop new technologies in
response to tougher new standards.
    Existing or planned regulations would control 90 percent to 95
percent of emissions in question, and ''It's that (remaining) 5
percent that is really where the debate is,'' he said.
    Thomas said he decided that before deciding on a risk-reducing
approach, ''the issues should be laid out much more thoroughly, and
we needed a public process,'' including a Washington public hearing
Sept. 1.
    Risks permitted by government vary widely. EPA generally has tried
to reduce lifetime risks of cancer when they are one in 10,000 or
larger, and has tended to ignore risks of one in a million or less.
    Maximum permitted workplace exposure to benzene means a one in 100
chance of leukemia, according to OSHA.
    The average risk of dying in an auto accident is about one in 100.
The risk of cancer at sea level from natural background radiation is
about one in 1,000. A woman's risk of breast cancer is about one in
10.
    
 
AP-NY-07-21-88 0258EDT
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