New air quality study challenges ICC approval

The petition asks DOT to review new studies on air pollution from vehicle emissions, including a report released Tuesday on an air quality study of the ICC commissioned by Environmental Defense and the Sierra Club.

Using scientific modeling, the study found that ‘‘the road would cause violations of the Clean Air Act standards for fine soot pollution that went into effect in December 2006,” said Michael A. Replogle, transportation director for Environmental Defense.

State transportation officials had not yet seen the study, said Valerie Burnette Edgar, a spokeswoman for the State Highway Administration. ‘‘We know that the ICC meets all the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regulations for the new standard for the airborne particles,” she said.

The Federal Highway Administration anticipated the new air quality standards, and the agency’s environmental impact study, which was released about nine months before the standards took effect, found that air quality around the ICC would meet the standard, Edgar said.

The National Environmental Policy Act requires federal agencies to evaluate new information about ongoing projects, said Steve Caflisch, conservation chairman of the Maryland Sierra Club.

Last year, the EPA released a list that included 93 chemicals in vehicle emissions ‘‘that are well recognized to have serious health effects from environmental levels of exposure, including cancer, respiratory irritation and neurotoxicity,” Caflisch said. ‘‘Given this disturbing new information, the DOT needs to go back to the drawing board and re-evaluate its approval of the ICC.”

A federal lawsuit the critics filed in December said the FHwA failed to address the ICC’s impact on air pollution and public health when it approved the project.

That lawsuit is likely to be merged with another lawsuit filed by the Audubon Naturalist Society, the Maryland Native Plant Society and two Derwood residents whose home lies in the highway’s path, said Robert Yuhnke, an attorney for Environmental Defense.

The petition filed Tuesday ‘‘won’t directly affect the claims” in that lawsuit, he said.

Portions of the ICC, which broke ground in October, are expected to be completed in 2010 and 2011. The highway would connect Interstate 270 at I-370 in Gaithersburg and I-95 and U.S. Route 1 in Laurel.

Read the report

Go to www.environmentaldefense.org⁄go⁄iccoptions