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Toxic Air and America’s Schools
Christopher Gavigan
Wednesday, December 17, 2008
USA Today released a special report earlier this week called The Smokestack Effect: Toxic Air and America’s Schools. Using an EPA model to track the path of industrial pollution, the report mapped almost 128,000 school locations to determine the levels of toxic chemicals in the surrounding air. The report declared the potential problems that emerged to be “widespread, insidious, and largely unaddressed."
Using the EPA’s method for tracking chemical emissions, USA Today spent 8 months examining the air outside of public, private and parochial schools from Maine to California. They developed a ranking system based on the concentrations and health hazards of airborne chemicals, using emissions reports filed by 20,000 industrial sites in 2005.
The report cited Meredith Hitchens Elementary School, located in the suburbs of Cincinnati, as a sort of benchmark for the school environments that pose hazards to students’ health:
School district officials pulled all students from Hitchens three years ago, after air samples outside the building showed high levels of chemicals coming from the plastics plant across the street. The levels were so dangerous that the Ohio EPA concluded the risk of getting cancer there was 50 times higher than what the state considers acceptable.
The report exposed 435 other schools (the worst ranked) with air quality that appears to be even worse than at Hitchens, thus the threats to the health of students at those locations may be even greater. Here are some examples of the most concerning findings:
• At Abraham Lincoln Elementary School in East Chicago, Ind., the model indicated levels of manganese more than a dozen times higher than what the government considers safe. The metal can cause mental and emotional problems after long exposures. Three factories within blocks of the school — located in one of the most impoverished areas of the state — combined to release more than 6 tons of it in a single year.
• In Huntington, W.Va., data showed the air outside Highlawn Elementary School had high levels of nickel, which can harm lungs and cause cancer.
• At San Jacinto Elementary School in Deer Park, Texas, data indicated carcinogens at levels even higher than the readings that prompted the shutdown of Hitchens. A recent University of Texas study showed an "association" between an increased risk of childhood cancer and proximity to the Houston Ship Channel, about 2 miles from the school.
The health impacts of air pollution on children remain a mystery. Scientists have long known that kids are particularly susceptible to the dangers. They breathe more air in proportion to their weight than adults do, and their bodies are still developing.
Dr. Philip Landrigan, Healthy Child Board Member and Director of Mount Sinai School of Medicine’s Children’s Environmental Health Center, told USA Today, "The mere fact that kids are being exposed ought to be enough to force people to pay attention. The problem here is, by and large, there's no cop on the beat. Nobody's paying attention."
Based on the time children spend at school, their exposures could last for years but the impact might not become clear for decades. Another example cited in the report:
That was the case in Port Neches, Texas, where more than two dozen former students of Port Neches-Groves High School have been diagnosed with cancer several years after they graduated, according to court records. So far, 17 have reached legal settlements with petrochemical plants located less than a mile from the school. In court filings, the plants' operators had denied they were to blame for the illnesses.
The findings of the investigation are startling. But the truly shocking realization is that a newspaper, using the EPA’s own tools (funded by tax payer dollars), produced a public health report that has never even been attempted by the EPA itself. The EPA, in effect, ignored its own data.
There are no laws or regulation requiring air monitoring near schools. If regulators had used their own pollution models to look for schools in toxic hot spots, they would have discovered what USA Today found.
Senator Barbara Boxer expressed concern by USA Today’s findings, and a resolution to take action. She commented publicly that, “…I plan to ensure that this monitoring takes place and that our children are protected. If legislation is needed, I'm going to do it immediately. If it can be done with current authority, then it's going to happen. I'll do what I have to do, but either way, it's going to be done."
To find out how your child’s school was ranked by the special report, access their ranking system through this easy search function.
Sign a letter sponsored by Moms Rising to Congress and to the leaders of President-elect Obama's transition team for the environment. Ask them to make our children's health a top priority!
