Cancer Rates and Cement Plants 1

Transcription

1 Cancer Rates and Cement Plants 1 Introduction: I designed this lesson because I am concerned with the waste produced from Lafarge Corporation in Alpena, MI. Lafarge is a cement plant that incinerates toxic wastes to power their five kilns. Alpena is my hometown and my parents have worked for the company for about the last 15 years. In 1995, toxic emissions were very high, but since then, precautions have been taken and the emissions are carefully regulated and are within EPA standards. However, there have been a couple cases of breast cancer among the few female employees at the plant in recent years. I would like to further investigate this issue. Even though no conclusions can be drawn to show that they definitely contribute to cancer, a comparison can be made among various cement plants. Purpose: This lesson will focus primarily on cancer data and toxic releases in the state of Michigan. You will use ArcVoyager to display the geospatial data for cancer statistics (1999) by county and to display the Toxic Release Inventory (TRI) from 1998 for various facilities. Further use of the data would be to choose a facility and gather information on the pollutants and carcinogens produced. Procedure: Part I: Displaying the Geospatial Data on ArcVoyager 1. Open ArcVoyager Special Edition and select Creating New Worlds: Turn Me Loose from the Guide menu. Then select Creating New Worlds: Start-up Project. Start the project by clicking on the magnifying glass at the top of the screen. Minimize the Guide window and you should have a new window entitled View 1 on your screen. 2. Name your view by clicking on the View pull-down menu and selecting Rename type in the name of your project (ie. Cancer and Toxic Releases). 3. Add a map of Michigan to the view. click on the View pull-down menu and select Add Theme. Locate the file where you saved the information for this lesson and click on mich.shp and hit OK. (Make sure you are looking for Feature data.) You should now have this file in your view. Check the box for the theme to display the map in the window. See Figure 1. 1 This lesson was developed by Janelle Kochanski. This work is supported by a grant from the National Science Foundation, project VISIT. May 7,

2 Figure 1. Map of Michigan 4. Add the cancer data. Again, go to the View pull-down menu and select Add Theme. Then go to the file where the data is saved and select cancermi.shp and hit OK. You should now have the cancer file in your view. 5. Before we display the information we need to refine the data. Double click on the cancermi.shp title in your view. It should open to a new window titled Legend Editor. Pull down the menu for Legend Type by clicking on the arrow to the right. Select Graduated Color. In the Classification Field use the arrows until you see the file Wfbreast (white female breast cancer) this will select the type of cancer statistics we want to look at. Change the color scheme by using the Color Ramp menu to select Blues to Reds dichromatic. Click Apply then the x at the top right to close this window. You should now have a colored legend for various ranges of cancer statistics in your view. 6. Check off the theme and the Michigan map should now be color-coded. Change the name of the theme by going to the Theme pull-down menu and selecting rename (ie. Female Breast Cancer). See Figure 2. Figure 2. Michigan Cancer Statistics May 7,

3 7. Add the TRI information. This will map out the toxic releases from various facilities. Open the View pull-down menu and select Add Theme. Go to the location of your files and find the one titled TRI.shp. Select this file to place in your view. 8. Double click on the TRI.shp title so we can open the Legend Editor. Change the Legend Type to Graduated Color and change the Classification Field to Tot_rel (Total Released). This will allow us to see the total releases of toxic waste. Use the Color Ramp menu to change the color to Green to Cyan to Blue. Click Apply and close the window. Display the data on your map by checking off the TRI theme. 9. Rename the theme by using the Theme pull-down menu and select Rename (ie. Total Toxic Releases). 10. You should now have a map of Michigan displaying cancer statistics and TRI data. See Fig. 3. Figure 3. TRI and Cancer Statistics for Michigan Part II: Choosing a Facility using ArcVoyager 1. The identify icon in the lower left corner of the toolbar can be used to identify various points on the map. Make sure the TRI theme is the active theme (will have a shaded box around it), then use the identify icon to choose a facility and display it s database. (I chose the blue marker in northeastern lower Michigan (Alpena) and located 4 facilities. One of these is Lafarge.) 2. By comparing the data tables for these four facilities, it can be determined that Lafarge is the largest producer of toxic waste in this area. See Figure 4. Figure 4. Lafarge Data Table May 7,

4 Part III: Producing a Data Table for the Facility 1. The first step to produce a data table is to find the data. In order to do this, the most beneficial site I found is to explore Scorecard ( 2. Once you locate the site a selection of maps appears. For this activity I chose Toxic Releases from Industrial Facilities. After making your selection click on the hyperlinked text provide your zipcode (near the bottom of the screen). 3. Enter the zipcode of the facility you are researching then select the county (if there are more than one listed). (I entered and selected Alpena County) 4. A series of data tables will be listed. I chose 1999 Rankings: Major Chemical Releases or Waste Generation in Alpena County. Once the page opens, you can rank the facilities (hyperlinked) in Alpena County by clicking on the link. A window should appear with the facilities for the county. See Figure 5. Figure 5. List of Facilities 5. After selecting a facility (ie. Lafarge Corp. (Including Systech Env. Corp.) ) another series of data tables will appear. These relate to the selected facility only. 6. To identify the carcinogens produced, May 7,

5 choose 1999 TRI Pollution Releases Sorted by Health Effect and a table will appear as shown in Figure 6. Choose the amount (in lbs) of Recognized Carcinogens and a list of the actual chemicals and their amounts will be shown (See Figure 7). Figure 6. Table of Toxic Chemicals Released 7. After identifying the chemicals produced they can be placed in a table to sort the data for the various companies. Figure 7. List of Recognized Carcinogens Produced 8. Another data table can be selected which will rank the major chemical releases at the selected facility as compared to national rankings. Go to step 6 and select 1999 Rankings: Major Chemical Releases or Waste Generation at this Facility. A graph will appear as seen in Fig. 8. May 7,

6 Figure 8. Graph of National Ranking 9. These findings for Lafarge can then be compared to other facilities. I chose to compare these findings with those of ABTCO a Louisiana Pacific Company. In doing so, it is clearly seen that Lafarge is the major producer of carcinogens in Alpena County. 10. Here is an example of a data table that could be made from the data collected in this lesson. Table 1. Lafarge versus ABTCO Facility Compound Air Releases (lbs) Water Releases (lbs) Lafarge Corp. Benzene Lead Compounds Dichloromethane Tricholoroethylene 58 0 Tetrachloroethylene 32 0 Total: ABTCO Formaldehyde Total: National Ranking Cancer Risk Score 80-90% Cancer Risk Score 10-20% Extensions: This lesson would work well in comparing the pollutants of various cement and incinerator facilities around the nation. May 7,