A new list of the top corporate air polluters in the United States includes two companies based in Peoria and a third Illinois firm with a key operation here, according to researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

The “Toxic 100 Air Polluters” include Caterpillar (#96), Ameren (#99) and Archer-Daniels-Midland (#7), say the findings from Amherst’s Political Economy Research Institute (PERI), which released the study March 31.

“The Toxic 100 Air Polluters informs consumers and shareholders which large corporations release the most toxic pollutants into our air,” said Professor James Boyce, co-director of at PERI’s Corporate Toxics Information Project. “We assess not just how many pounds of pollutants are released, but which are the most toxic and how many people are at risk. People have a right to know about toxic hazards to which they are exposed. Legislators need to understand the effects of pollution on their constituents.”

The Toxic 100 Air Polluters index is based on air releases of hundreds of chemicals from industrial facilities across the country. The rankings take into account not only the quantity of releases, but also the toxicity of chemicals, transport factors such as prevailing winds and height of smokestacks, and the number of people exposed, say Bouce and colleague Michael Ash.

For the first time, the Toxic 100 list includes information on the risk from industrial air toxics for minorities and low-income communities. The list relies on the federal Environmental Protection Agency’s Risk Screening Environmental Indicators (RSEI), which measures the chronic human health risk from industrial toxic releases. The underlying data for RSEI is the EPA’s Toxics Release Inventory (TRI), for which facilities report their own releases of toxic chemicals. In addition to the amount of toxic chemicals released, RSEI also includes the degree of toxicity and population exposure. The Toxic 100 Air Polluters ranks corporations based on the chronic human health risk from all their U.S. polluting facilities.

For example, the data reveal that minorities bear 87% of the air toxin risk from facilities owned by Cemex, while minorities make up just 38% of the U.S. population. Further, Cemex – the Mexico-based cement manufacturer with facilities in 10 states and Puerto Rico – releases toxins in places where the poor shoulder 43% of the risk. The number of Americans living in poverty are about 39 million, or 13% of the population, according to the Census Bureau.

Cat, Ameren and ADM fare much better. PERC shows that minorities shoulder 25.1% of Cat’s air toxin risk and low-income Americans 12.8%. Minorities endure 19% of Ameren’s air toxin risk and low-income people 8.9%. Minorities bear 28.7% of ADM’s air toxin risks and the poor 21.7%.

Reports based on TRI data alone are limited because raw TRI data are reported in total pounds of chemicals, without taking into account differences in toxicity; TRI data do not consider the numbers of people affected by toxic releases; and TRI data are reported on a facility-by-facility basis, without combining plants owned by one corporation to get an idea of overall corporate performance.

The Toxic 100 Air Polluters index addresses all three problems by using the 2006 Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators (RSEI) data, the most recent available from the EPA. In addition to TRI data, RSEI includes toxicity weights and population exposure. PERI researchers added up facility-by-facility RSEI data released by the EPA to construct corporate rankings.

Breaking down the three area corporations’ situations, ADM released 11.11 million pounds of toxic air pollution in 34 locations, including Peoria, Galesburg and two in Quincy. Ameren released 6.93 million pounds at 11 sites, including Bartonville and Canton. And Caterpillar released 310,000 pounds at 17 places, including Peoria, East Peoria, Mapleton and Mossville.

“In making this information available, we are building on the achievements of the right-to-know movement,” explains Professor Michael Ash, co-director of the Corporate Toxics Information Project. “Our goal is to engender public participation in environmental decision-making, and to help residents translate the right to know into the right to clean air.”

Cat spokeswoman Kate Kenny said, “We’re not familiar with the study or its methodology and can’t comment on its accuracy or conclusions.”

Ameren spokeswoman Susan Gallagher did not respond.

The complete list of the Toxic 100 Air Polluters is online: http://www.peri.umass.edu/toxic_index/

Company reports detailing pollution locations, etc. are online at http://data.rtknet.org/tox100/

Bill Knight is a Peoria journalist who teaches at Western Illinois University. bill.knight@hotmail.com.