Journal
INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF ENVIRONMENTAL RESEARCH AND PUBLIC HEALTH
Volume 18, Issue 4, Pages -Publisher
MDPI
DOI: 10.3390/ijerph18041872
Keywords
gasoline; benzene; TVOC; exposure assessment; probabilistic risk assessment
Funding
- US Department of Transportation [69A3551747128]
- U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health [T42 OH0008428]
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Research found that benzene exposure risk from pumping gasoline at gas stations in the United States is relatively low, with consumer and occupational risk control within acceptable levels. In approximately 30% of occupational trials, the risk from pumping gasoline exceeded that of ambient benzene exposure.
Tens of millions of individuals go to gasoline stations on a daily basis in the United States. One of the constituents of gasoline is benzene, a Group 1 carcinogen that has been strongly linked to both occupational and non-occupational leukemias. While benzene content in gasoline is federally regulated, there is approximately a thirty-year data gap in United States research on benzene exposures from pumping gasoline. Using a novel self-sampling protocol with whole air canisters, we conducted a gasoline pumping exposure assessment for benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, and xylene (BTEX) on Baltimore, MD consumers. Geometric mean exposures (geometric standard deviations) were 3.2 (2.7) ppb,9.5 (3.5) ppb, 2.0 (2.8) ppb, and 7.3 (3.0) ppb, respectively, on 32 samples. Using the benzene exposures, we conducted consumer and occupational probabilistic risk assessments and contextualized the risk with ambient benzene exposure risk. We found that the consumer scenarios did not approach the 1:1,000,000 excess risk management threshold and that the occupational scenario did not exceed the 1:10,000 excess risk management threshold. Further, in all Monte Carlo trials, the ambient risk from benzene exposure exceeded that of pumping risk for consumers, but that in approximately 30% of occupational trials, the pumping risk exceeded the ambient risk.
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