Environmental concerns aren't a new thing around Calvert City. The small Marshall County city is home to an industrial park that houses more than a half-dozen chemical plants and manufacturers and, over the years, area residents have raised concerns that those businesses could be putting their health at risk.
Now, researchers with the University of Louisville and Murray State University are conducting exposure assessment studies around the Calvert City area in response to those concerns in an attempt to assess the impact emissions from the chemical plants could have on its residents and wildlife.
Representatives from U of L's Center for Integrative Environmental Health Sciences held a meeting in Grand Rivers Thursday to give an overview of their plans for the research project, and to take questions from residents about the scope of their investigation.
In partnership with Murray State, CIEHS researchers plan to look into community exposure to chemical emissions by testing wastewater samples and bird and amphibian populations, along with collecting blood and urine samples from some residents in Marshall, Livingston and McCracken counties.
Calvert City's industrial complex is home to several chemical plants. Last year, the Environmental Protection Agency released a report that found elevated levels around Calvert City of volatile organic compounds, or VOCs. According to the report, the elevated VOC levels it measured in Calvert City could lead to greater chronic cancer rates over a 70-year lifetime of continuous exposure.
That report followed a ProPublica investigation that discovered an air monitor at a local school playground in Marshall County captured elevated levels of toxic industrial air pollution for years.
Matt Cave, a professor of medicine at U of L, said community residents contacted CIEHS with concerns about potential hazardous health effects related to chemical emissions from some of Calvert City's plants.
"We won't be directly looking at cancer [rates] because that takes a long time. You know, it may take 10, 20, 30 years or more for someone to develop cancer," Cave said. "But we can look at surrogate biomarkers in the short term, out of things like blood tests or urine tests, and we can do that both in humans and in wildlife."
The research team is focusing on three chemicals: ethylene dichloride, vinyl chloride and benzene. Vinyl chloride and benzene have been identified as substances that can cause cancer in humans. The EPA lists ethylene dichloride as a "probable human carcinogen."
The 2024 EPA study identified ethylene dichloride as the chemical creating the biggest risk for residents that lived near the agency's testing sites. The Calvert City Westlake Vinyls facility was responsible for 96% of ethylene dichloride air emissions over the study period – the largest single source of EDC air emissions in the United States, according to the EPA's 2020 National Emissions Inventory.
Lauren Anderson, a researcher at U of L's School of Medicine, said one way researchers could see the rates of those chemicals in community members is by testing wastewater samples. When the human body processes certain substances, it creates byproducts called metabolites. Anderson said researchers can then test the levels of certain metabolites in wastewater to get a broad idea of how much of the community is impacted by chemical exposure.
The research team began collecting samples from wastewater treatment facilities in Livingston County in March. Researchers said Thursday that Livingston County is the only place where the research team has received authorization to collect wastewater samples for testing.
CIEHS staff members told the Grand Rivers crowd that they would like to test wastewater from Calvert City due to the community's proximity to several chemical plants, but said city leaders have not granted authorization for that testing. Calvert City Mayor Gene Colburn did not respond to a request for comment, as of Friday afternoon.
Another aspect of the research project is testing some species of birds and amphibians in parts of far western Kentucky to see whether they have been impacted by chemical emissions.
Keegan Abeson, a doctoral student at U of L, said CIEHS received reports from some residents about birds dying off around the Calvert City area, and concerns that those deaths may be related to chemical emissions. Abeson said, in addition to studying potential reasons behind the deaths of those birds, studying them could also help researchers apply some of the findings to humans.
"[Birds] react to pollution and other stressors in a fashion that might be similar to humans, and sometimes they're even more sensitive, so they can tell us what might need to come or how we can respond to humans," Abeson said.
Howard Whiteman, director of the Watershed Studies Institute at Murray State, said studying amphibians in the area could also help researchers find an "early warning signal" if a pollutant is impacting the ecosystem.
"Before things happen in humans, it often affects amphibians and you see that actually globally, because amphibians have declined. That may be part due to environmental pollution as well as disease and things like that that are affecting them," Whiteman said.
In addition, CIEHS researchers are in the process of gaining approval to start testing blood and urine samples. Those samples would be used to test chemical exposure rates on a more individual scale compared to the wastewater testing.
Cave said the earliest that study would be able to start would be in late summer to early fall.
However, the research team's timeline and scope of the project will be dependent on funding. Researchers have applied for a $250,000 grant from the National Institutes of Health, and are waiting to hear back from the federal government about those dollars, as many research institutions wait to see if Trump administration cuts to the NIH will impact their work.
Cave said CIEHS is also in a renewal period for its NIH funding. Currently, the department has $20,000 budgeted for the project – half of which is slated for the bird research portion.
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