Environmental Health Study for Western New York

The goal is to learn more about how air pollution, including pollutants emitted by the Tonawanda Coke plant, have affected the health of the communities of the City of Tonawanda, the Town of Tonawanda and Grand Island. This includes current and former residents of these communities, along with people who work or have worked at or near the plant.

The research team will use scientifically established approaches to understand the types of health problems community members are experiencing, and how these conditions may be linked to exposure to chemicals found in coke oven emissions, such as benzene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons. The research will also explore how lifestyle factors like diet and exercise may help to lower the risk of environmentally associated disease.

The study will not only analyze the historical impact of exposure to air pollution on health outcomes, but will also document new cases of diseases that arise over the study period of 10 years or more. This work will provide insight on how exposure to air pollution, including emissions from the Tonawanda Coke plant, may be continuing to impact people’s lives today, even after the plant emissions have been markedly reduced.

To capture a more complete picture of how various environmental exposures have affected the health of the communities studied, the research will seek to understand the communities’ past exposure to chemical pollution through not only coke oven emissions but also through other sources, such as traffic emissions.

The research aims to empower the local communities by helping residents of the City of Tonawanda, the Town of Tonawanda and Grand Island gain important new knowledge about their collective health.

The study will give residents an increased understanding of how prevalent various diseases are in their communities, and how these diseases may be linked to pollutants found in coke oven emissions. The research will also shed light on how lifestyle factors like diet and exercise affect a person’s risk of developing disease following exposure to pollutants.

Such information can inform decision-making, helping residents and community leaders decide how to focus public health policies, as well as community-driven initiatives aimed at improving community health through education, awareness and clinical care. In the future, insights from the study could help to prevent disease in these and other communities.

A team from the UB School of Public Health and Health Professions and Jacobs School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences is leading the study, with input from advisory committees.

Community advisory committees consisting of residents and community leaders are providing input to help guide the project, and a scientific advisory committee consisting of national experts with experience in epidemiology and environmental health is providing guidance on scientific matters.

The UB Institutional Review Board will review all study protocols — crucial oversight that is intended to protect the rights and wellness of study participants. 

The research team has met with community members and leaders on multiple occasions to discuss the study and solicit feedback about the project. Researchers are establishing community advisory committees that consist of residents and community leaders who will provide input to help guide the project, providing insight on the design of the study and playing a key role in deciding how research findings can best be shared with and communicated to local communities.

The research team has established a scientific advisory committee consisting of national experts with experience in epidemiology and environmental health. This outside group of experts will provide guidance on scientific matters, offering feedback on the study’s design and analysis.

The study will follow thousands of residents from the City of Tonawanda, Town of Tonawanda and Grand Island for 10 years or more to assess the impact of exposure to air pollution on their health. As of October 2019, more than 12,700 have enrolled.

Participants will complete detailed questionnaires that ask about their health history and lifestyle habits. Participants will also be asked to fill out short follow-up questionnaires periodically to provide updates on their health and their lifestyle habits. Participants will also be asked to give urine and blood samples, which can provide useful information relating to an individual’s exposure to chemicals and risk for developing disease.

The research will use a variety of scientific methods to understand the link between chemical emissions and health outcomes — including diseases that are not yet known to be associated with pollutants — in the community.

The project also includes a study of Tonawanda Coke employees. This research intends to examine records to determine whether employees exposed to coke oven gas were more likely to die from related diseases.

To enroll in the study, visit https://ehstudy.buffalo.edu/.

Current and past residents of the City of Tonawanda, Town of Tonawanda and Grand Island are invited to participate, as well as people who work or have worked in these communities. The study is currently enrolling adults. Children and teenagers under the age of 18 will be invited to take part at a later date.

Broad participation in the study will generate the best, most useful results. For the study to be successful, researchers are encouraging all community members from the City of Tonawanda, Town of Tonawanda and Grand Island to participate. This includes people who do not think they have been exposed to emissions from the Tonawanda Coke plant.

The study website provides information about the research and will later be used to share updates on the progress of the study.

To understand residents’ exposure to pollutants, researchers will use data collected by air quality monitors over several decades to reconstruct how emissions from the Tonawanda Coke plant and other sources were dispersed over many years. This advanced geographic modeling will help the team estimate how much residents in different locations were exposed to chemicals found in coke oven emissions, such as benzene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, over time. 

The team also plans to measure the metabolites — the breakdown products — of chemicals in urine samples from study participants. While certain chemicals have a short half-life, including benzene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, the level of metabolites in urine can provide valuable information about recent and ongoing exposure that will help to characterize exposure more comprehensively. 

To understand the health problems residents are experiencing, researchers will analyze participants’ responses to questionnaires. Participants will also be asked to give a blood sample, which the research team plans to analyze for biologic markers such as signs of oxidative stress that may be linked to cancer and other health conditions.

Taken together, the information regarding residents’ health and exposure to chemicals will enable researchers to draw connections between chemical exposure and the prevalence of different diseases in the community. 

“As reviewed by the scientific advisory committee, the study team at the University at Buffalo is applying a rigorous, objective approach to address potential environmental health effects in the affected community,” says David Savitz, PhD, professor of epidemiology in the Brown University School of Public Health and chair of the health study’s scientific advisory committee. “The study seeks to address longstanding questions posed by the community as well as advance knowledge more generally regarding the health effects of the pollutants under investigation, and promises to make significant scientific and public health contributions.”

Benzene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons will be included in the research, but are not the only chemicals that will be studied. Many other chemicals are found in coke oven emissions, and the research team plans to analyze several of these, including particulate matter less than 2.5 microns in size, sulfur dioxide, nitrogen oxides and cadmium.

In addition, while the effects of benzene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons on health have been researched, the study will provide important new information on how these chemicals may be linked to the health of the specific communities studied. In the City of Tonawanda, the Town of Tonawanda and Grand Island, the study will track how these pollutants may be linked to a variety of health problems — including diseases that are not yet known to be linked to chemicals found in coke oven emissions.

Past studies have linked benzene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons to disease in people exposed to extremely high, occupational levels. It is less clear how lower levels of these compounds over time may affect disease.

The UB researcher who is leading the study — Matthew Bonner, PhD, associate professor of epidemiology and environmental health — explains that the most definitive studies linking benzene and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons to health concerns have been conducted on mostly male populations exposed to extremely high levels of such chemicals in locations such as factories.

The scientific community knows less about the impact on the elderly, women and children, and how levels of exposure akin to those experienced by the residents of the City of Tonawanda, the Town of Tonawanda and Grand Island correlate with disease, Bonner says. The new study aims to address these and other gaps in knowledge. 

This study will not be able to assess all illnesses that might be caused by environmental pollution because some conditions are very rare.

In addition, reconstructing individual historical exposure levels to common environmental pollutants, such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons and benzene, is an imperfect process. As a result, the study may only capture the strongest associations between chemical exposure and health. In addition, the study will not be able to state definitively whether an individual participant’s health problems are linked to exposure, but will rather characterize average risks in the population.

A federal judge ordered Tonawanda Coke Corp. to fund the study after the company was convicted of violating the Clean Air Act and Resource Conservation and Recovery Act. A federal appeals court rejected the company’s appeal in 2016, and initial funding for the research was released that year.

Tonawanda Coke filed for bankruptcy in October 2018 and did not make its final $2 million payment for the study. As a result, UB researchers received $9.4 million for the study, not $11.4 million as ordered by the federal judge.

No. The federal judge that ordered the Tonawanda Coke Corporation to fund the environmental health study also ordered the company to fund a second, separate $711,000 soil study.

The soil study, which is being conducted by a different team, tests for contaminants in the soil in surrounding communities. From the results of the soil testing, the soil study team will examine how the contaminants are related to emissions from the Tonawanda Coke plant. More information on the soil study is available online here.

Statement from researcher Matthew Bonner, PhD, UB associate professor of epidemiology and environmental health:

“We have great respect for the work that the Clean Air Coalition does and for its efforts and mission to improve community health. Unfortunately, to date we have been unable to find common ground with the Clean Air Coalition on this study, but we welcome future discussion with the coalition on this important research.

“We recently began enrolling participants in the study, and we are excited to continue our work with the community on this important research.

“The research — the ‘Environmental Health Study for Western New York’ — will use rigorous, scientifically established approaches to investigate how emissions from the Tonawanda Coke plant and other sources may have affected the health of people who lived and worked near the plant. The study will analyze the types of health issues community members are experiencing; how these conditions may be linked to exposure to chemicals found in coke oven emissions; and how lifestyle factors like diet and exercise may help to lower the risk of environmentally caused disease.

“Community participation is vital to the success of the study, and we have met with community members and leaders on multiple occasions to discuss our research and solicit feedback. Community advisory committees that consist of residents and community leaders are informing the project, providing insight on the design of the study and playing a key role in deciding how research findings can best be shared and communicated.

“We believe that the research will empower local communities by helping residents of the City of Tonawanda, the Town of Tonawanda and Grand Island gain important new knowledge about their collective health. Such information can inform decision-making within these communities, helping residents and community leaders decide how to focus new policies and initiatives aimed at improving community health. In the future, insights from the study could help to prevent disease in these and other communities.

“By following study participants for 10 years or more, our work will not only investigate the historical impact of emissions, but also provide insight on whether exposure to chemicals may be continuing to impact people’s lives today.

“To provide guidance on scientific matters, including the study methodologies that will be used, we have established a scientific advisory committee consisting of national experts with experience in epidemiology and environmental health. This outside group will provide feedback on the study’s design and analysis.

“In addition to the research, the study will support educational efforts and community-driven initiatives to improve health. We will seek the community's input in defining how these efforts should be structured, and which health challenges they should address.”