TIMES PAST: MARCH 22, 1956
Peering Hopefully Into the Future
Builders erecting the Los Angeles Chamber of Commerce building at 404 S. Bixel St. cemented a time capsule behind a cornerstone. Inside the capsule were typewritten thoughts about what the county might be like 50 years in the future. Among the hope-filled offerings sealed away in the copper box: "Skies will be clear and free from smog" and "There will be a cure for cancer." The capsule was to remain untouched until 2005, but chamber officials dug it out in June 1994 when the chamber moved to a new home across the street.
Now, the lead story from today's paper:
State's Air Is Among Nation's Most Toxic
Only New York has a higher risk of cancer caused by airborne chemicals, the EPA says.
Despite two decades of cleaning up carcinogenic fumes from cars and factories, Californians are breathing some of the most toxic air in the nation, with residents of Los Angeles and Orange counties exposed to a cancer risk about twice the national average.
A nationwide, county-by-county snapshot of the cancer threat posed by air pollution provides a troubling portrait of California, revealing that many potent chemicals still pose an excessive risk...
California officials say the danger is far worse. They have calculated a cancer risk that is about 15 times higher for the Los Angeles region because they included diesel exhaust, which was excluded from the EPA's numbers, and ranked other chemicals as more potent than the EPA did.
When exhaust from diesel engines — which scientists consider the biggest cancer threat — is included, one in every 714 residents of the Los Angeles Basin (1,400 per million) could contract cancer from air pollution, the South Coast Air Quality Management District says.
Nice to know in a constantly evolving city like L.A., some things never change. Come for the astronomical housing prices, stay for the cancer-causing air pollution!
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