CANCER IN L.A.'S AIR; SKIES CLEANER, BUT TOXIC SMOG PERSISTS.

Byline: Deborah Sullivan Daily News Staff Writer

The level of toxics in the Los Angeles region's air has fallen more than 40 percent in the past decade but still causes thousands of cancer cases every year, an ambitious new study reported Friday.

The study, which began in May and concludes in April, examined 10 permanent sites throughout the L.A. Basin plus 14 mobile sites that were placed in areas suspected of having high levels of toxic air.

Preliminary results of the South Coast Air Quality Management District study indicate pollutants in the Los Angeles area might cause as many as 426 extra cancer cases per million people each year. That's a risk of more than 1,500 extra cancer cases each year in the city of Los Angeles, and more than 4,000 countywide.

In Burbank, which was monitored for the first time with a mobile unit, the study found a risk of 479 extra cancer cases per million people annually, while a similar mobile unit in Pacoima measured the risk at 423 cases. Results from tests in Van Nuys were not yet available.

The results echo those of a congressional report on air toxics commissioned by Rep. Henry Waxman, D-Los Angeles, and released earlier this month. That report examined data from three L.A. County sites, including Burbank, and found exactly the same regional cancer risk as the AQMD study.

``The findings of the AQMD study along with the Waxman report certainly raise many questions regarding public health and the health effect of exposure to hazardous toxics,'' said David Berger, program director of the American Lung Association of Los Angeles County.

``We need to get a full and complete picture of the health risk of pollutants from our environment.''

AQMD officials said the numbers represent a wakeup call about the long-term health risks of air pollution, but they stressed that cancer-causing air toxics are on the decline.

``I think it means there's a lot more work to be done,'' said AQMD spokesman Sam Atwood. ``The good news is the levels have been nearly cut in half since 1990.''

The study found the highest risk of cancer from the auto emissions benzene and butadiene, but also found significant levels of chemicals in the formaldehyde family, the dry cleaning chemical perchloroethylene and industrial metals such as hexavalent chromium, said Mel Zeldin, the AQMD's executive for air quality monitoring.

Two-thirds of the risk was attributable to auto pollution, compared to stationary sources such as factories or other industrial plants, Zeldin said. That finding reinforces conclusions of Waxman's study that car exhaust, besides causing asthma attacks and other immediate respiratory problems, also raises the long-term risk of cancer.

The study showed that the cancer risk peaked in late fall - after smog season is over - when cold weather traps pollutants near the ground and causes cars to run inefficiently, releasing more emissions.

The preliminary AQMD findings do not include the cancer risk posed by diesel particles, which may be the most hazardous of all, Zeldin warned. The final study should measure that.

``It's every indication that diesel particulates will be more dominant than everything we've measured so far,'' Zeldin said.

While the study raises serious concerns about how healthy Los Angeles' air is, district officials say there are no rules on what the overall cancer risk level should be. The district has set limits on the cancer risks posed by individual facilities, but has no such rules for ambient air.

``I don't believe that there is really a well-defined standard for what a cumulative exposure level should be,'' Zeldin said.

State Sen. Richard Alarcon, D-Van Nuys, who helped design the study as a Los Angeles city representative to the AQMD, said its aim was to determine whether poorer areas of the city face greater pollution problems.

``The purpose of the report was to determine if air quality was different in the different socioeconomic parts of Los Angeles and to allow the AQMD to target those areas,'' he said.

The highest risk area found in the study was the industrial enclave of Huntington Park, with an estimated 508 extra cancer cases per million people. But no area tested, including the coastal areas of Long Beach and Costa Mesa, showed risk levels lower than 200 cancer cases per million people every year.

``Regardless of what the study shows, we have to continue to do more'' to reduce air toxics, Alarcon said. Officials say ongoing programs to reduce other kinds of air pollution will help cut cancer-causing air toxics as well.

``Effort still needs to move along to reduce emissions from motor vehicles,'' Zeldin said. ``Efforts for cleaner fuels, zero emission fuels, that are part of the plan to reduce emissions leading to the reduction of ozone, those same control efforts will reduce the levels of toxic contaminants in the air.''