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9486 in the collection
Air tests reveal elevated levels of toxics around schools
Ohanian Note: There's
an interesting point in this article:
Monitoring of air quality in schools is
generally left up to the state. The Feds only
care about insisting on standardized reading
math tests. Air quality tests are of small
concern.
Where's the outcry--or just voice of concern--
from the corporate-politicos?
Go to the url below and you can find out if
schools in your community are on the toxic
list.
By Brad Heath and Blake Morrison
MIDLAND, Pa. — In this borough of 2,900 in the
westernmost part of the state, the steel
industry used to be the primary employer.
Today, Midland's schools offer the most jobs —
and now are beginning to unravel a mystery that
could affect the health of their students.
For five days this fall, USA TODAY monitored
the air near Midland Elementary-Middle School,
a red-brick building blocks from the riverside
steel plants that defined the town for
generations. It was one of 95 schools in 30
states where the newspaper teamed with
scientists at Johns Hopkins University and the
University of Maryland to take samples and
analyze toxic chemicals in the air.
The highest readings appeared near seven of the
schools, including Midland. At those locations,
USA TODAY's monitoring showed pollution at
levels that could make people sick or
significantly increase their risk of cancer if
they were exposed to the chemicals for long
periods.
Among the chemicals found in the air near the
seven schools: the metals manganese and
chromium, and the carcinogens benzene and
naphthalene, all in concentrations that could
be well above U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency safety thresholds for long-term
exposure.
At 57 more schools, the results showed
combinations of chemicals at levels that were
lower than at the seven worst locations but
still higher than what some states consider
acceptable. At about half of these schools —
including some along Louisiana's Gulf Coast as
well as in affluent suburbs such as McLean,
Va., and Lakewood, Colo. — benzene was
primarily responsible for the potential health
risks. The chemical is often found in refinery
emissions and automobile exhaust.
Experts say even small amounts of toxic
chemicals can do irreparable harm to children,
who breathe more air per pound than adults do,
and whose bodies process chemicals differently.
Exposures "may be causing mutations in a
child's cells that begin the pathway to
cancer," says Philip Landrigan, one of the
nation's foremost experts on pediatric medicine
and a physician at the Mount Sinai School of
Medicine in New York.
"Those mutations, once they take place, they're
hard-wired," Landrigan says. "They may go on to
cancer. They may go nowhere. But they certainly
put the child at greater risk of cancer, and
that risk is life-long."
Regulators usually examine cancer risks by
asking how many more cases might result from
pollution. If the risk, based on a lifetime of
exposure, is less than one additional case per
1 million people, the EPA considers the air
safe. But if the risk is higher — for instance,
if the risk of an additional cancer exceeds one
in 100,000, a level USA TODAY found at 64
schools where it monitored — regulators might
work with industries to curb emissions.
"These results suggest that we need to be
concerned about what the children are breathing
while at school," says Patrick Breysse, a
scientist with Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School
of Public Health who helped oversee USA TODAY's
efforts.
Breysse, director of the Center for Childhood
Asthma in the Urban Environment at Hopkins,
cautions that the results from USA TODAY's
monitoring represent only a "snapshot of
pollution." He says parents "shouldn't take
these results and abandon their schools. But
they certainly need to start asking people in
authority to find out more."
He says the findings should prompt the
government to act "with some sense of urgency"
to investigate pollution outside schools where
health risks appear to be the greatest. In some
cases, that may mean regulators working with
industries near schools to cut their emissions,
he says. "In extreme cases," he says, "it may
mean shutting down or moving schools."
'Just stunned'
To select where to monitor, USA TODAY used a
government computer model that shows how
industrial emissions are dispersed throughout
the country. About two-thirds of the schools
chosen appeared hard-hit by toxic chemicals;
the other one-third were in areas where the air
seemed relatively clean.
At some schools, USA TODAY's monitoring
involved placing charcoal badges near schools
to capture toxic chemicals. At other locations,
reporters also used pumps and filters that
collected samples of metals and other
compounds.
In both cases, USA TODAY followed established
protocols and used the same equipment employed
by many universities and industries to monitor
air quality. The monitoring lasted four to
seven days, a short amount of time compared
with the months-long monitoring that state and
federal regulators can do.
Regulators, however, seldom check for toxic
chemicals outside schools. "We're trying to
show that we can flag some schools based on the
limited data collected by USA TODAY," Breysse
says. "Now we're calling on the EPA and other
health authorities to do it more thoroughly."
That's exactly what is happening in Midland,
where USA TODAY's monitoring found high levels
of chromium. Airborne chromium can take two
forms — one can cause cancer, the other is
relatively harmless.
What remains unknown is what type of chromium
was in the air. The more dangerous form, known
as hexavalent chromium or chromium 6, can be
released during a variety of industrial
processes, including steelmaking and cement
production. It has no odor or taste and is
difficult to detect without more sophisticated
monitoring.
If the chromium were the more harmful form, the
dangers in Midland could rival those found
outside Meredith Hitchens Elementary, a
Cincinnati-area school where the Ohio EPA
concluded the risk of cancer was 50 times
higher than what the state considers
acceptable. The district closed Hitchens in
2005.
HEALTH RISK: Students near industrial plants
may be in danger
Last year, three companies operating near
Midland — a steel mill and a foundry blocks
from the school, and a power plant across the
Ohio River — filed reports with the EPA that
showed combined releases of at least 7,500
pounds of chromium into the air. The EPA
doesn't require the companies to say what type
of chromium.
Dan Greenfield, a spokesman for Allegheny
Ludlum Corp., which runs the steel mill in
Midland, says it's "extremely unlikely" that
any chromium 6 came from the mill. "We have
state-of-the art environmental controls," he
says.
A representative of Whemco, which operates the
foundry, declined to comment. Ellen Raines, a
spokeswoman for FirstEnergy Corp., which runs
the power plant, says its emissions are diluted
by high smokestacks, and that scrubbers on
those stacks trap most of the chromium before
it's released.
Monitoring at Midland also showed manganese, a
metal that can damage the nervous system, at a
higher level than what the EPA says is safe.
The newspaper's findings prompted the
district's superintendent to push for action.
On Nov. 19, the day a reporter told him of the
high chromium readings, Superintendent Sean
Tanner asked the Pennsylvania Department of
Environmental Protection to put an air monitor
at the school. The agency installed one on the
roof the next morning. "I wanted something
done, and I didn't want to wait," says Tanner,
who says he was "just stunned" by USA TODAY's
findings. "I thought that was necessary to
protect our students, our staff and,
ultimately, our community."
Since USA TODAY monitored, slumping demand
prompted Allegheny Ludlum to mostly idle its
Midland steel mill, Greenfield says. It's not
clear when production will fully resume.
Pennsylvania authorities said Thursday that
initial air tests for chromium and other
airborne metals did not indicate reason for
concern. Two days of samples — both taken since
the Allegheny Ludlum plant reduced production —
showed chromium levels 10 times lower than what
USA TODAY detected.
An agency guide on air monitoring notes that
results of such monitoring often vary based on
the weather, or whether a factory is "operating
on one sampling day, but not on another." A
spokeswoman for the state's environmental
agency, Teresa Candori, says regulators plan to
collect samples at Midland for at least six
months.
The government routinely monitors for six
chemicals, most notably those that cause smog.
A report three years ago by the EPA's inspector
general highlighted shortcomings in the
agency's monitoring for about 180 others, all
toxic. It concluded that "many high-risk areas"
for chemicals do not have monitors.
In the past decade, for instance, USA TODAY's
search of EPA records found only about 3% of
the nation's schools were within a mile of a
long-term monitor set up to detect hazardous
air pollutants. Even fewer — the newspaper
identified only 125 of almost 128,000 schools —
had monitors within a few blocks.
Although the EPA provides grants for monitoring
at locations where pollution models indicate
problems, officials say such monitoring is
primarily left to each state. The EPA has
increased its grants since the inspector
general's report, says Robert Meyers, the
agency official in charge of air issues. Since
2004 it has spent $37 million on new monitoring
stations.
He concedes that those grants — and subsequent
decisions on where to monitor — put no emphasis
on schools, even though the agency acknowledges
that children are particularly susceptible to
toxic chemicals.
Despite strict limits on pollution that causes
smog, the EPA has no standards for how much of
a toxic chemical can be in the air before the
agency takes action. That makes assessing
dangers children face inexact at best.
"There may have been some lip service about
paying attention to children … but they're not
putting their money where their mouth is,"
Melanie Marty, a toxicologist with the
California EPA, says of the U.S. EPA. "If we
don't know anything, we can't say we're
protecting the general population out there,
let alone kids."
Sources hard to identify
USA TODAY did not place monitors on school
grounds. Rather, reporters, editors and others
— including local volunteers and journalists
from Denver television station KUSA and local
newspapers owned by Gannett, USA TODAY's parent
company — found locations that generally were
within 100 yards of schools.
At those locations, often homes or businesses,
the air would be similar to what was outside
the school buildings.
Scientists from Hopkins and Maryland analyzed
the samples for about 40 chemicals.
The chemicals might have come from a variety of
sources: heavy industries such as refineries
and steel mills, smaller businesses that aren't
required to report their emissions to the
government, gas stations and automobiles. The
monitoring could not pinpoint sources.
Benzene levels were especially high outside at
least three schools: Jotham W. Wakeman School
in Jersey City; Wayne School in Erie, Pa.; and
H. Byron Masterson Elementary School in
Kennett, Mo. There, benzene levels were high
enough that they could cause at least one
additional cancer for every 10,000 people
exposed throughout their lives, Hopkins found.
Studies have linked benzene to leukemia.
"These are still based on limited data,"
Breysse cautions. "But they should stimulate
further investigation."
Monitoring is key
Other locations appeared less troubling. In
Ashland City, Tenn., for instance, the EPA
computer model indicated the air at Ashland
City Elementary School was rife with manganese.
The model ranked it among the very worst
schools in the nation for industrial
pollutants.
USA TODAY monitored the air twice near the
school. Although the snapshot samples aren't
definitive, both tests found levels of
manganese thousands of times lower than what
the model estimated would be in the air there.
Why the vast discrepancy? The EPA model relied
on reports submitted by A.O. Smith, a water
heater manufacturer in Ashland City. The
company reported to the EPA that it released
33,788 pounds of manganese into the air in
2005.
A spokesman for the company, Mark Petrarca,
says its emissions reports are accurate but
that its manganese is trapped in flakes that
usually fall to the shop floor and are moved
off the site. Only "trace amounts," he says,
would be emitted from the plant.
That's consistent with what USA TODAY found and
underscores the need to monitor before
concluding that the air outside any school is
dangerous.
Even with the monitoring by USA TODAY, Hopkins'
Breysse sees merit in checking further.
Others echo his assessment. USA TODAY's
monitoring "really is a first snapshot, and you
need to see the movie to see the whole thing,"
says Paul Koval, a toxicologist with the Ohio
EPA who spearheaded the seven-month monitoring
effort that led to the closure of Hitchens.
"Discovering what's happening in your
community," he says, "still needs to be done,
no matter what."
Contributors: Mark Hannan, Rhyne Piggott
Contributors to air-monitoring project
USA TODAY monitored air quality at 95 schools
across the nation, under the supervision of
Patrick Breysse of Johns Hopkins Bloomberg
School of Public Health and Amir Sapkota of the
University of Maryland School of Public Health.
Fieldwork was done by Dan Reed, Kevin McCoy,
Rick Jervis, Chris Woodyard, Dennis Cauchon,
Judy Keen, Larry Copeland, Rick Hampson, Byron
Acohido, Haya El Nasser, Mike Tsukamoto, David
Lindsey, Noah Grynberg, Nicholas Persac and
Linda Mathews of USA TODAY; Nicole Vap, Anna
Hewson and Byron Reed of KUSA-TV in Denver;
James Bruggers, Stefanie Frith, Tracy Loew,
David Castellon, Brian Passey, Ben Jones,
Jennie Coughlin, Kathleen Gray, Tim Evans, Lori
Kurtzman, Jeff Martin, Adam Silverman, Greg
Latshaw, Grant Schulte, Ron Barnett, Gunnar
Olson, Dirk VanderHart, Kevin Paulk, Clay
Carey, Maureen Milford and Dan Nakaso of
Gannett newspapers; and local volunteers
Deborah Corcoran, R.E. Corcoran, Michael
Corcoran, James Mathews, Donald DeWees, Maureen
Gallagher and Pauline Cross.
— Brad Heath and Blake Morrison
USA Today
2008-12-09
http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/environment/school-air-monitoring1.htm?csp=DailyBriefing
INDEX OF OUTRAGES
Pages: 380
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