There is a proposal to build an apartment complex in Milltown. The development will include 190 units. A number of children are expected to live there. The housing will occupy the land of Acme and several other stores. This land is next to the NJ Turnpike and Route 617. We are very concerned about the pollution from the two highways and its effect on the children who will live there. New research shows that living closer than 500 feet from a highway is a health hazard.
The purpose of this website is to document scientific studies on the peril of living next to a highway. On this webpage, we provide exact quotes from websites such as the American Lung Association, the Environmental Protection Agency, and the World Health Organization, as well as links to those websites at the bottom of this webpage. On the other pages of this website are scientific articles from Pubmed, the database maintained by the United States National Library of Medicine (NLM) at the National Institutes of Health. Those articles are about the link between pollution and certain chronic illnesses. This website provides a copy of the summary of the articles, where the most important conclusions of the research are in bold format. We also provide a link to the article on the National Library of Medicine Pubmed website.
You may also do your own search by using the name of a chronic illness and the word: pollution or living near a highway. You might find even more conditions than exist on this website since pollution seems to harm so many bodily functions.
Unlike other types of pollution, the harmful chemicals produced by trucks and cars remain in the air but are invisible to the human eye. That has tricked humans into not being alarmed about its danger. Some people have used infrared cameras to view vehicular fumes. There is a website that shows what cities would look like if chemicals emitted from vehicle exhausts were visible in the air.
There is a new WHO (World Health Organization) report on Air pollution and child health. We will quote some of the statements from their website:
It reveals that when pregnant women are exposed to polluted air, they are more likely to give birth prematurely, and have small, low birth-weight children. Air pollution also impacts neurodevelopment and cognitive ability and can trigger asthma, and childhood cancer. Children who have been exposed to high levels of air pollution may be at greater risk for chronic diseases such as cardiovascular disease later in life.
“Polluted air is poisoning millions of children and ruining their lives,” says Dr Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, WHO Director-General. “This is inexcusable. Every child should be able to breathe clean air so they can grow and fulfil their full potential.”
One reason why children are particularly vulnerable to the effects of air pollution is that they breathe more rapidly than adults and so absorb more pollutants.
They also live closer to the ground, where some pollutants reach peak concentrations – at a time when their brains and bodies are still developing.
“Air Pollution is stunting our children’s brains, affecting their health in more ways than we suspected." says Dr Maria Neira, Director, Department of Public Health, Environmental and Social Determinants of Health at WHO. [1 ]
According to a recent report from the World Heart Federation Air Pollution Expert Group, globally, air pollution ranked the fourth highest among risk factors for mortality, beating out high LDL-C, high body mass index, high fasting blood glucose and alcohol use (Figure 2).5 [2]
Pollution has a very negative effect on children's brains. In the section of this website about the brain, we provide scientific papers that show how high levels of pollution may change the structure of the brain and produce the following outcomes:
California health officials have warned about constructing schools near highways. They are especially concerned about risks to children from living or going to school near freeways. After all, US EPA confirms that when adults and children receive the same pollution exposure, children are hurt roughly ten times more than adults.
According to the website of the Environmental Protection Agency:
"Increased risk in children is related to the following factors:
Children spend more time outdoors at greater activity levels than adults, resulting in higher exposures and higher doses of ambient particle pollution per body weight and lung surface area.
Children are more likely to have asthma than adults.
Children’s developing lungs are prone to damage, including irreversible effects through adolescence."[3]
According to an increasing number of medical and scientific studies, children who attend schools located next to freeways and busy truck routes face harmful health effects from the pollutants. Some states have taken action to protect children from the harms of roadway pollution. In California, the construction of school buildings near the Golden State's maze of freeways has nearly stopped. Diane Bailey, a senior scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council, said the reason for that is Senate Bill 352, approved by California lawmakers in 2003. That bill prohibits the construction of new schools near a highway. [4]
Senate Bill 352 states the following:
THE PEOPLE OF THE STATE OF CALIFORNIA DO ENACT AS FOLLOWS:
SECTION 1. The Legislature finds and declares all of the following:
(a) Many studies have shown significantly increased levels of pollutants, particularly diesel particulates, in close proximity to freeways and other major diesel sources. A recent study of Los Angeles area freeways measured diesel particulate levels up to 25 times higher near freeways than those levels elsewhere. Much of the pollution from freeways is associated with acute health effects, exacerbating asthma and negatively impacting the ability of children to learn.
(b) Cars and trucks release at least forty different toxic air contaminants, including, but not limited to, diesel particulate, benzene, formaldehyde, 1,3-butadiene and acetaldehyde. Levels of these pollutants are generally concentrated within 500 feet of freeways and very busy roadways.[5]
Wikipedia states the following: According to the International Bridge, Tunnel and Turnpike Association, the NJ Turnpike is the nation's sixth-busiest toll road and one of the most heavily-traveled highways in the nation.[6]
The NJ turnpike is twice the size of most highways. Another fact to consider is a highway on the other side of Acme, Route 617.
It is also less than 500 feet from Acme.
Therefore, Acme is between two highways, one of which is gigantic. Would a child growing up in those apartments receive three or four times the amount of pollution measured in the research studies about living next to a highway? Has there ever been research on what this would do to a child who grows up with this abnormally high pollution level? Poison is dose-dependent; the dose of pollution does make a difference. [7] This is a very alarming and scary future for the children who might live on the land of Acme. They might suffer even more than the children whose health was measured in the studies on this website.
Children using drugs are especially vulnerable to the effects of pollution. There is a great epidemic of drug use in NJ; this is affecting all economic and racial groups. We tried to find out if there was much drug use in these types of apartment projects, and we did indeed find evidence of it.[8] Drug use brings the possibility of experiencing a drug overdose and the risk of death. Chronic health conditions such as lung disease, heart disease, liver disease, mental health conditions, or other health concerns could increase the chance of a drug overdose.[9][10]
Unfortunately, exposure to severe air pollution may increase the odds of diseases that make one more vulnerable to a drug overdose. This website contains links to scientific articles about the association between severe pollution and lung disease, heart disease, liver disease, mental health conditions, or other health concerns that increase the chances for a drug overdose. We must assess whether this might lead to more deaths for the young residents of the Acme apartments. It is always sad to hear about young people dying from drug overdose. We cannot approve a project that increases the risk of death.
The law does not permit building homes on contaminated soil because some toxins might escape into the air or the water.
The town of Milltown ought to investigate whether the toxins produced on the Acme property by the NJ Turnpike would be greater than those produced by contaminated land. Is it possible that the land of Acme might have one of the most lethal airborne toxins in the country since so many vehicles travel on the roads right next to it? There is an urgent need to investigate this. This matter should not be left to the developer since there is a conflict of interest!
Unfortunately, pollution has already done a lot of damage to children. There has been a significant increase in chronic childhood diseases such as diabetes, especially among minorities.
Researchers have been noting for some time that caloric excess and physical inactivity do not fully account for the rise of diabetes prevalence, so there must be other factors at work, according to Jyotsna S. Jagai, PhD, research assistant professor at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Jagai’s team looked at the association between environmental quality and diabetes in a study published in the Journal of Diabetes Investigation in 2019. That study confirmed the role of pollution in diabetes.[11]
According to the American Lung Association website, the most recent EPA review of the research on the health effects of particle pollution concluded that nonwhite populations faced a higher risk from particle pollution.[12] Another large study found that minorities had a higher risk of premature death from particle pollution than whites did. This happens even if they have similar pollution levels. [13]
The American Lung Association website also affirms that low socioeconomic position appears tied to greater harm from air pollution. [12]
An article posted on Pubmed, the website run by the National Library of Science, states the following:
Racial/ethnic minorities are 1.5 to 2.0 times more likely than whites to have most of the major chronic diseases. Chronic diseases are also more common in the poor than the nonpoor and this association is frequently mediated by race/ethnicity.[14]
Specifically, children are disproportionately affected by racial/ethnic health disparities. Between 1960 and 2005 the percentage of children with a chronic disease in the United States almost quadrupled with racial/ethnic minority youth having higher likelihood for these diseases. The most common major chronic diseases of youth in the United States are asthma, diabetes mellitus, obesity, hypertension, dental disease, attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, mental illness, cancers, sickle-cell anemia, cystic fibrosis, and a variety of genetic and other birth defects. [14]
Such a change in the rate of chronic illness is alarming. What happened between 1960 and 2005 to produce this disaster? This change might be due to several factors, but could the significant increase in pollution between 1960 and 2005 take most of the blame? What is forcing us to come to that conclusion? We made a
search for the role of pollution for all the conditions mentioned as being the most common major chronic diseases of youth in the US: we omitted the term "a variety of genetic and other birth defects" since that term was too vague. We were shocked to read that pollution played a role in most of the conditions. In some conditions, pollution made the symptoms worse, and in other conditions, it might have been responsible for causing the illness when there was a genetic susceptibility.
Proof that most chronic diseases of youth are linked to pollution may be found by clicking on the tabs on this website.
It is a tragedy that many poor minority children live in polluted neighborhoods and suffer so much. However, we cannot blame anyone because the harm of pollution was not known at the time the highway and the buildings were built. However, we now know about the perils of pollution, and we also know that the land of Acme is even more polluted than the land of most poor neighborhoods. We cannot build homes that will hurt children.
References
1 Article from the World Health Organization
2 Risk factors for mortality
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7953955/figure/ehaa1025-F1/
3 EPA website explaining why children are vulnerable
https://www.epa.gov/pmcourse/particle-pollution-exposure#groups
4 KING-TV (channel 5) is a television station in Seattle, Washington, United States, affiliated with NBC.
5 California Senate Bill 352
https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billNavClient.xhtml?bill_id=200320040SB352
6 Information about the NJ Turnpike in Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Jersey_Turnpike
7 EPA Website concerning the importance of dose for pollution:
https://www.epa.gov/fera/sources-chronic-dose-response-information
8 Proof of substance abuse in Mt Laurel type of apartments was done by reading the Google reviews of tenants in those buildings. Some tenants complained about their neighbors.
9 Websites that list the conditions that could increase the chance of a drug overdose.
https://www.mass.gov/service-details/opioid-overdose-risk-factors
10 https://www.who.int/news-room/fact-sheets/detail/opioid-overdose
11 Association between environmental quality and diabetes in the USA
12 Website of the American Lung Organization about the increased risk of pollution for minorities:
Low socioeconomic position also appears tied to greater harm from air pollution.
11https://www.lung.org/clean-air/outdoors/who-is-at-risk/disparities
13 Research article documenting that minorities had a higher risk of premature death from particle pollution than whites
https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa1702747
14 Research article about the increase of chronic illness for children
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/24175301/
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