How Rise4EJ Is Fighting For Clean Air Kansas City
This blog post was a guest feature written by Rise4EJ Executive Director Beto Lugo-Martinez.
About Rise4EJ
RiSE4EJ has been steadfast and unwavering in its fight to advance environmental health and just solutions that are protective of the health of overburdened communities in Kansas City. RiSE4EJ is committed to holding polluters accountable and pushing for toxic pollution enforcement across the Midwest and the nation. Communities are grappling with the potential rollbacks of public health protective emissions standards that the federal administration attempts to rescind – because national policy has local impacts.
Therefore, public participation and vigilance on local issues, including land use and industrial permits, are critical to protecting the health of our communities, especially of overburdened neighborhoods. This is how federal actions can have broad reaching impacts – especially when these decisions have a hyperlocal impact.
Harcros Chemicals and Hazardous Air Pollutants
Harcros Chemicals is a manufacturer and distributor of various chemicals, and uses mass quantities of Ethylene Oxide in its manufacturing process. A 2021 analysis by ProPublica found that Harcros’s emissions expose neighboring communities to an “excess” cancer risk as high as 1-in-910, which is approximately eleven times greater than EPA’s presumptively “unacceptable” cancer risk. Based on a 2023 analysis using EPA’s EJScreen (last visited Dec. 4, 2024), 68% of people living within 3 miles identify as people of color. EPA’s EJScreen tool has since been removed by the Trump Administration.
Section 112 of The Clean Air Act (CAA) established the list of Hazardous Air Pollutants (HAPs and also known as air toxics)–currently numbering 188 pollutants–and requires EPA to set National Emission Standards for Hazardous Air Pollutants (NESHAP) for categories of both major sources and “area” sources in various industry sectors. As a chemical manufacturing facility with reported HAP emissions below major source thresholds, Harcros is subject to the air toxics standards for Chemical Manufacturing Area Sources (CMAS).
After years of advocacy from environmental justice organizations, the EPA proposed long-needed revisions to the CMAS standards earlier this year. RiSE and others met with the EPA on February 20, 2025, and, with support from Earthjustice, submitted technical written comments on the proposed rule.
For decades community residents have been conducting their own air, water and soil sampling as well as crowdsourcing data, to prove that negative health outcomes are associated with environmental health hazards. Finalization of the revised CMAS standards is critical to protect public health. The proposed revisions include several important changes that would directly apply to Harcros, including limits on ethylene oxide emissions, fenceline monitoring requirements, and a requirement for Harcros to obtain a federally enforceable Title V operating permit.
The Harcros Chemicals Permit
On March 13, 2025, Kansas Department & Environment (KDHE) posted a public notice for a new construction permit and operating permit for Harcros Chemicals’ facility in Kansas City, Kansas. The following day RiSE requested a public hearing. The Harcros facility emits several toxic chemicals in its manufacturing processes, including ethylene oxide (EtO), a known carcinogen. Harcros’s application proposed to install scrubbers to reduce emissions and to add a new transloading plant, which would load methyl isobutyl ketone (MIBK) from railcars to tanker trucks and result in increased potential emissions. In the proposed operating permit, Harcros also sought certain limitations that would restrict its emissions below major source thresholds, thereby allowing the facility to remain a “synthetic minor source.”
On April 7, 2025 RiSE requested an extension of the comment period so that community members would have all the relevant information required to submit public and written comments, as some information had been withheld from the public. KDHE agreed to hold a public hearing on May 13, 2025, but declined to extend the comment period further.
Why This Matters to RiSE
As proposed, the CMAS rule will apply to Harcros Chemicals and several other chemical manufacturing facilities in the Kansas City Bi-State Area and across the Midwest. EPA Region 7 has specifically conducted air toxics surveys in the Kansas City Bi-State Area due to “dense concentrations of industries, which may subject these communities to disproportionate impacts on their health and/or environment.
According to the EPA’s Toxic Release Inventory, Harcros released a total of 4,282 lbs of ethylene oxide in 2021. The company uses and stores nearly two hundred thousand pounds of this chemical on site and releases thousands of pounds into the environment annually. Harcros has previously violated its permit limits and has been subject to several enforcement actions for the potential and actual harm it has caused to the environment and to worker health & safety.
Updating and enforcing CMAS standards could reduce cancer-causing emissions from Harcros and other chemical facilities like it. This standard would also require fenceline monitoring for ethylene oxide (ETo) which would promote accountability and transparency as well as keep community members informed about the carcinogens being emitted – ideally preventing unsafe levels from persisting in the environment.
Public Participation and Local Relevancy
On May 13, at our requested public hearing, RiSE presented on the related impacts of the environmental exposures and potential health risks including a tracked violation history of Harcros. We submitted written and oral public comments to KDHE – commenting on the information improperly redacted and withheld, as well as the lack of transparency, lack of language accessibility and overall incompetence. The state’s failure to protect public health, reinforces an ongoing need for accountability. Even more impressively, the same day of the hearing, Harcros notified KDHE of an air deviation in which the facility had improperly operated ethylene oxide control equipment for at least 2 months.
We have already confirmed that Bayer CropScience is operating with an expired Title V permit – without facing consequences.
Both Bayer CropScience and Harcros are covered by the EPA's Risk Management Program, because they store mass quantities of highly hazardous chemicals on site. What is even more concerning is that whether these several tons of several chemicals are in storage tanks or in tankers for transport, neither company has engaged with the public to explain how they would notify and protect nearby communities from a chemical disaster. A worst-case chemical disaster at Bayer CropScience could result in over 185,000 pounds of chlorine gas over a 14 mile radius over downtown KC, triggering an evacuation/shelter-in-place of over 900,000 people, according to its Risk Management Plan accessed in one of EPA’s public reading rooms. A worst-case chemical disaster at Harcros Chemical could result in the release of over 175,000 lbs of ethylene oxide over a nearly six mile radius, triggering an evacuation/shelter in place of over 190,000 people. Bayer CropScience and Harcros were both recently identified in a Government Accountability Office report as being at a high risk of flooding.
Cumulative Impacts
To meet the goals of the Clean Air Act’s NESHAP program, EPA must also consider the cumulative impacts on people who are exposed to a variety of pollutants, as is the case in most overburdened communities. Instead of focusing on just one polluting industry’s emissions or one smoke stack over a lifetime, cumulative impacts consider the whole picture of combined chemicals and toxins coming from all polluting sources released into a community. To achieve environmental justice and improve health, we must transform our regulatory system to acknowledge the myriad environmental and socioeconomic stressors that synergistically and disproportionately impact overburdened communities. RiSE4EJ was a co-developer of the Cumulative Impact Guide and is also involved in training and/or workshops on the topic, locally and to other networks, legislators, public health professionals, lawyers, and community members. The Community Guide to Cumulative Impacts breaks down the science and organizing needed for stronger pollution-prevention policies at the state and local level. For more information contact RiSE4EJ
