It won't save money if we let dirty environment harm our families' health

Here in Washington, we think of our state as healthy and are proud to call our home the Evergreen State.

But the health of our air and water is more vulnerable than most of us imagine. And there is plenty of evidence that shows the health of our state’s environment is inextricably linked with our own – meaning our health is more at risk than we realize.

As a health professional and professor of nursing at the University of Washington Tacoma, my teaching, research and service focus on improving the public’s health. For example, I teach students how to best provide health education about the dangers of smoking around children with asthma.

However, as a society, we need to address upstream causes of illness such as environmental pollution, which increases the risk of all sorts of diseases. In Tacoma, we see examples every day of the interrelationship between our health and the environment. We know polluted air and water hurt health. And we know how hard (and expensive) it is to restore health in both the environment and ourselves.

Unfortunately, state protections for our air and water have been cut to the bone, so now the protections we rely on to keep us safe are hanging by a thread. Let’s take clean air as an example.

Less than two years ago, the Tacoma area officially received a dirty air designation from the federal Environmental Protection Agency. The Tacoma area was one of 31 across the country identified as not meeting the standard for fine particle air pollution such as dust, smoke and soot.

Studies clearly link air pollution to increased asthma-related emergency room visits and hospitalizations, as well as increased illness and even death from other lung diseases, heart problems, and cancer. This isn’t acceptable.

All of us, especially our kids, deserve better than breathing air that can make us sick. Decreasing funding for clean air programs right now is likely to increase asthma attacks and other preventable health conditions. The health impacts of air pollution are also expensive; the state Department of Ecology estimates the costs of illness and hospitalization relating to air pollution to be almost $190 million each year.

Prevention is not only cheaper, but it also makes much more sense in the long run. For example, children who miss school due to an asthma attack lose valuable learning opportunities. Their parents may miss work to care for them, creating economic burdens.

Air pollution is just one example of the health risks we face due to pollution and toxic contamination. Tacoma is still cleaning up the mess that Asarco left behind. There are day cares and playgrounds with dangerous levels of lead and arsenic, which put our kids’ health at risk. Actions as simple as children picking up dropped toys and putting them in their mouths can expose kids to lead and increase their health risks.

That’s not the kind of dangers our children should have to face. But the money for toxic site cleanup is under siege. Over the past few years, $250 million have been transferred out of a voter-approved toxic cleanup fund. Further cuts endanger these essential cleanups in our community – putting the health of all of us at risk.

As our state legislators face challenging budget decisions, I urge them to maintain the critical environmental protections that ensure we have clean air to breathe and safe water to drink, and to clean up toxic sites that threaten our health. Keeping our environment clean will protect our children, public health, economic future and quality of life here in Washington.

Janet Primomo is an associate professor of nursing at the University of Washington Tacoma.