Eto Testing in Lake County

Floor Speech

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Mr. SCHNEIDER. Mr. Speaker, last month, I spoke on the floor about the urgent need for EPA ambient air testing at two manufacturing facilities in Lake County that use ethylene oxide, a known carcinogen.

As well, I and my colleagues in the Illinois delegation have written to the EPA urging them to undertake ambient air monitoring.

The neighbors living near these plants, as well as the local governments, need to know that the air they breathe is safe. Yet the EPA still refuses to conduct any ambient air monitoring, instead insisting on using dispersion models based on estimates of smokestack emissions.

Such dispersion monitoring is completely inadequate because it fails to account for what are known as fugitive emissions, EtO escaping into the environment from locations other than the smokestack.

Absent EPA leadership, the local municipalities and the Lake County Public Health Department have stepped up to pursue monitoring on their own.

Good for them, but it should not have come to this. They are only doing so because the EPA has failed to do its job.

Our communities deserve far better from the EPA. This is about our families and the public health. I urge the EPA to do its duty and to begin this vital testing immediately.

BREAK IN TRANSCRIPT

Source