Anchorage Daily News

Anchorage has cleaned up carbon monoxide from vehicles enough to meet federal pollution standards. But there are still questions about how big a problem we have with air pollution from benzene -- a compound known to cause cancer.

Benzene levels in Alaska's gasoline are up to five times higher than in other states, city air quality program supervisor Steve Morris wrote in an article published early this year. When cars burn gasoline here, they spew that benzene into the air.

It's cause for concern. And it's one reason the Anchorage Assembly was right to keep emissions testing for Anchorage vehicles, even though the city could end the tests and still meet carbon monoxide standards. The emissions testing and repair program cuts our levels of benzene by about 18 percent, according to federal Environmental Protection Agency estimates.

The city doesn't yet know exactly how much benzene is in Anchorage's gasoline, or whether benzene builds up to dangerous levels in houses that have attached garages. But a number of studies are in the works to find out.

Dr. Mary Ellen Gordian of the UAA Institute for Circumpolar Health Studies expects to complete in November a study of benzene levels and health status in more than 500 Anchorage households. She will also participate in a new city study that measures benzene levels in 60 homes over a year.

Anchorage may have higher levels of benzene emissions than many urban areas for the same reason that carbon monoxide levels are high here -- our weather, and that fact that we have to cold-start our cars, said Morris.

And part of the problem may be high benzene levels in Alaska gasoline. The city will contract with UAA to measure benzene in gasoline samples from gas stations around town beginning in October, Morris said.

If high benzene content in gasoline is a problem, some relief is already in the works. The federal Environmental Protection Agency set new nationwide rules last year to limit the amount of benzene allowed in gasoline. The standards take effect in 2011.

It's too early to tell how exactly bad Anchorage's benzene pollution problem is. But the less of it in our gasoline and in our air, the better.

BOTTOM LINE: Benzene is a cancer-causing air pollutant. The less of it in Anchorage's air, the better.

Alaska Notebook

Road berries

While rain dribbled down in Anchorage last weekend, cranberry-picking mates and I lucked into a semi-sunny day down near Cooper Landing.

Can't tell you exactly where -- that would violate the berry-pickers' code. But we saw a lot of moose-hunters, too, men in pickups cruising up and down the road.

Normally, we'd brave the possibility of being mistaken for a moose, and the other possibility of running into a bear, and walk into the woods far enough to get lost.

Normally, we'd disdain picking the berries right by the road. Who knows what chemicals and road dust soaked into the fiber of the plants?

But this isn't a normal year.

The cranberries, sometimes fat and so plentiful you can pick off half a dozen with one catch, were smaller and scattered thinly over broad areas deep into the woods.

Bad for your back, and your berry bucket.

But walking out, we came upon a motherlode 20 feet or so from the road.

Uh oh, there went the standards. We picked more lush red berries in 10 minutes than we had over an hour. And kept picking.

So this year's cranberries have a little guilt built into them, but it's tastier than you might think guilt would be.

Still, next year, no road berries, I swear.

-- Rosemary Shinohara

ADVERTISEMENT