By Larry Higgs | NJ Advance Media for NJ.com
A study published Tuesday in Environmental Research Letters found that motor vehicle emissions caused an estimated 7,100 premature deaths in 12 Northeast and Mid-Atlantic states in 2016, with New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania the three states with the highest death tolls.
New Jersey experienced an estimated 1,175 deaths in 2016 due to ozone and fine-particle pollution from vehicle emissions, a death toll was lower than both New York state, which had the highest at 2,024 deaths, and Pennsylvania, which had the second highest at 1,270 deaths, the study found. The 13-state region in the study had 7,130 deaths in 2016.
The study is part of the Transportation, Equity, Climate and Health (TRECH) Project, a multi-university research initiative independently analyzing the Transportation and Climate Initiative (TCI), and other policy scenarios in reducing emissions.
Government agencies participating in TCI set pollution limits, then require fuel companies to buy and sell emissions allowances from the state and each other, which could earn the state $300 million annually, activists say.
While New Jersey is one of the states that is developing the TCI-P, the state has not begun the process needed to formally join the program.
Researchers at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill’s Institute for the Environment and the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard T.H Chan School of Public Health analyzed the deaths from transportation-related air pollution generated by five vehicle types in 12 U.S. states and Washington, D.C.
“What makes this study different from previous studies is that it connects the dots between where the pollution happens, and where the premature deaths occur,” said Saravanan Arunachalam, research professor and UNC Institute for the Environment deputy director.
New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey residents were also hardest hit with emissions-related health costs at $21 billion, $13 billion, and $12 billion, respectively, in 2016, based on the most recent data available from U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.
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