Varying Plans Spark Arguments : EPA Proposes 4 Options to Control Benzene in Air

WASHINGTON — The Environmental Protection Agency, sparking an immediate disagreement between environmentalists and industry groups, on Wednesday proposed four possible strategies for controlling emissions of benzene, a leukemia-causing byproduct of oil refining and chemical manufacturing.

The strictest proposal, which virtually would eliminate any potential health threat from airborne benzene, could force the closing of a number of industrial plants and cost thousands of jobs. The most lenient would allow for about one death every five years from benzene exposure, according to EPA calculations.

David D. Doniger, a lawyer for the New York-based Natural Resources Defense Council, said that his organization was pleased that the agency had offered two strong proposals in addition to what he said could be “the most shocking public health decision to come from the EPA during the Reagan era.”

American Petroleum Institute Vice President William F. O’Keefe said that the oil industry would urge adoption of the least stringent proposal. He called the stringent proposals “neither scientifically justified nor economically feasible.”

The EPA will choose from among the four proposals only after a 60-day period of public comment and a public hearing.

In April, the EPA almost issued a regulation similar to the most lenient of the new proposals. But after members of Congress and environmentalists criticized the plan, the agency decided instead to offer a range of possibilities for public comment.

EPA Administrator Lee M. Thomas said at a news conference that he hopes the public comment process not only will help the agency decide on a benzene policy but also will provide guidance on what level of other hazardous pollutants that the agency could consider as “safe.”

Benzene, which leaks into the air from oil refineries, chemical plants and steel mills, currently causes about three cases of leukemia in the general population every year, statistics show.

The four proposals differ over what is an “acceptable” rate of benzene-caused cancer. Plants that emit the chemical would have to shut down if they failed to clean up their operations to acceptable levels.

Under the strictest proposal, emissions of benzene outside factories would have to be so low that even those with the greatest exposure to the chemical would have only one chance in a million of developing leukemia during their lifetimes.

The second-toughest proposal would allow the chance of developing leukemia to rise to one in 10,000 for the most exposed individuals and industrial benzene could be expected to cause one case of leukemia in the nation every 14 years. Under this approach, the EPA estimated that as many as 100 plants might be forced to close and as many as 27,000 workers could lose their jobs.

Under the other two approaches, benzene emission levels would cause as many as one case of leukemia every five years. The second of these, which would allow greater release of benzene in some areas of the country than others, could allow the most exposed individuals in some areas to have six chances in 1,000 of developing leukemia.