Re: Is air at 3 area schools toxic?

[Guest guest]

December 08, 2008

Across U.S., kids exposed to toxic air

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http://www.azcentral.com/arizonarepublic/news/articles/2008/12/08/200

81208ustoxicschools1208.html

USA Today

ADDYSTON, Ohio - The growl of air-monitoring equipment has replaced

the chatter of children at Meredith Hitchens Elementary School in

this Cincinnati suburb along the Ohio River.

School-district officials pulled 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, the Ohio EPA concluded that the risk of

getting cancer there was 50 times higher than what the state

considers acceptable.

The air outside 437 other schools, from Maine to California, appears

to be even worse, and the threats to the health of students at those

locations may be even greater.

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Using the government's most up-to-date model for tracking the path

of toxic chemicals, USA Today spent eight months examining the

impact of industrial pollution on the air outside schools across the

nation. The model is a computer simulation that predicts the path of

toxic chemicals released by thousands of companies.

USA Today used it to identify schools in toxic hot spots, a task the

Environmental Protection Agency has never undertaken.

The result: a ranking of 127,802 public, private and parochial

schools based on the concentrations and health hazards of chemicals

likely to be in the air outside. The model's most recent version

used emissions reports filed by companies in 2005, the year Hitchens

closed.

The potential problems that emerged were widespread, insidious and

largely unaddressed.

At Abraham Lincoln Elementary School in East Chicago, Ind., for

instance, the data 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 similarly high levels of nickel that can harm

lungs and cause cancer.

The middle school in Follansbee, W.Va., is close to a cluster of

plants that churn out tens of thousands of pounds of toxic gases and

metals a year.

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 437 schools that ranked worst weren't confined to industrial

centers. Although Illinois, Ohio and Pennsylvania had the highest

numbers, the worst schools extended from the East Coast to the West,

in 170 cities across 34 states, USA Today found.

In some school districts, emissions from the smokestacks of

refineries or chemical plants threatened students of every age. At

those schools, reports from polluters themselves often indicated a

dozen different chemicals in the air. All are considered toxic by

the government, though few have been tested for their specific

effects on children.

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. Based on the

time they spend at school, their exposures could last for years, but

the impact on their health might not become clear for decades.

The federal EPA, which has a special office charged with protecting

children's health, has invested millions of taxpayer dollars in

pollution models to help identify schools where toxic chemicals

saturate the air. Even so, USA Today found, the agency has all but

ignored examining whether the air is unsafe at the very locations

where kids are required to gather.

" The mere fact that kids are being exposed ought to be enough to

force people to pay attention, " says Philip Landrigan, a physician

who heads a unit at Mount Sinai School of Medicine in New York

focused on children's health and the environment. " The problem here

is, by and large, there's no cop on the beat. Nobody's paying

attention. "

No standards

To identify locations where dangers appear greatest, USA Today used

a mathematical model, developed by the EPA, called Risk-Screening

Environmental Indicators. It estimates how toxic chemicals are

dispersed across the nation and in what quantities. The model's most

recent version used emissions reports filed by more than 20,000

industrial sites in 2005.

With the help of researchers from the Political Economy Research

Institute at the University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA Today

plotted the locations of schools to rank them based on chemicals

likely to be in the air outside.

Regulators caution that conditions at some schools may be far

different than the model makes them appear. Some of the schools, and

the companies responsible for the chemicals, may have closed or

moved since the government collected the data. Others may have

opened. And the data used in the model are based on estimates

submitted by the companies themselves. Clerical errors or flawed

interpretations of what needs to be reported can result in

misleading impressions about what's actually released.

The likely exposures weren't simply the product of living in a part

of town where pollution is heavy. In thousands of cases, the air

appeared to be better in the neighborhoods where children lived than

at the schools they attended, USA Today found.

Precisely what risks children face at each school remain a mystery -

to parents, school officials and government regulators responsible

for protecting public health. No laws or regulations require the

sort of air monitoring that would tell them.

" There are health and safety standards for adults in the workplace,

but there are no standards for children at schools, " says Ramona

Trovato, the former director of the EPA's Office of Children's

Health Protection who has since retired from the agency. " If a

parent complains, there's no law that requires anybody to do

anything. It's beyond belief. "

No initiative

Children's health experts have tried, with limited success, to push

the EPA to make better use of its own tools.

The EPA has taken many steps toward making children safer. It has

worked with schools to improve air quality inside buildings,

primarily by identifying toxic cleaners and other chemicals that

might harm students. Today, the EPA is looking at whether athletic

fields made with synthetic turf expose children to unsafe levels of

toxic chemicals.

What the agency hasn't done is use its models, as USA Today did, to

look for potential problems around schools, then follow up by

testing for toxic chemicals.

" It's not my job responsibility to initiate those types of

activities, " says Ruth McCully, who took over this year as head of

the agency's Office of Children's Health Protection and

Environmental Education.

" Do I personally have any ideas of the chemicals that might be

outside kids' schools? Well, I'm not going to answer that, " she

says. " I'm not out there doing air monitoring. "

That's precisely the problem, critics contend: a lack of urgency and

initiative on the part of EPA.

Balbus, chief health scientist for Environmental Defense,

frames the problem more practically. " To me, the greatest failure of

this administration has been the failure to focus on where problems

may be occurring now and take action. "

--- In , " tigerpaw2c " <tigerpaw2c@...>

wrote:

>

> Is air at 3 area schools toxic?

>

> http://www.indystar.com/article/20081208/LOCAL/812080356

>

> Indianapolis Star - United States

>

> Monitoring finds pollutants, but no one can say how harmful they

> might be

> By Tim and Andy Gammill

> Posted: December 8, 2008 Read Comments(20)

>

> An investigation by The Indianapolis Star and USA Today found

> significant levels of potentially harmful pollutants at three

metro-

> area schools. But just how harmful is impossible to know because

no

> one -- local school districts, county health departments or the

> state's environmental agency -- is actually measuring air quality

at

> schools.

>

> The pollutants, including traces of the carcinogen benzene, were

> identified during brief monitoring conducted earlier this year by

> The Star and USA Today outside School 49 in Indianapolis, North

> Elementary in Noblesville and Pittsboro Elementary in Hendricks

> County.

>

>