Troubling Report About Schools and Environmental Air Pollution
Despite my reluctance to admit that I read USA Today occasionally, I read USA Today occasionally. My aunt and uncle subscribe, and spending the holidays at their house, well, it’s here, and I tend to read anything within an arm’s reach.
USA Today has been publishing special investigative reports on “The Smokestack Effect: Toxic Air and America’s Schools“, and I happened upon this week’s installment in what seems to be a pretty expansive series. Monday’s paper had a scary article on the alarming proximity of industrial facilities and elementary schools and pre-schools.
USA Today found that more than 20,000 schools are located within one half-mile of an industrial plant that emits some rather dangerous pollution. That is one in every six schools. And to make matters worse, half od those schools are elementary schools and early education centers such as pre-schools. That is just unacceptable.
Children are kind of like our canaries in the coal mine. Think about it. Kids are smaller, so any chemical that is taken in is naturally going to become a higher amount percentage-wise than in adults. And here’s where it becomes downright negligent — the EPA only tests chemicals in terms of how they may affect an adult body.
Too little is understood about the impact of thousands of chemicals on children. In part, that’s because most government assessments of the dangers assume those exposed are adults.
“The science doesn’t know — it can’t establish — what a safe level is” for children, says Stephen Lester, the science director of the Center for Health, Environment & Justice, an advocacy group that focuses on children and schools. “There’s no tool, scientifically, for evaluating cumulative risk.”
Landrigan says the lack of detailed knowledge on safe levels of exposure, coupled with today’s rates of childhood cancer, asthma and attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder, or ADHD, begs “the obvious question: Is there a cause-and-effect relationship?” –USA Today
One of my pet research projects, and biggest gripes, is that many, many, way too many chemicals are not thoroughly tested before being approved for general consumption. Look at bisphenol-A. And in the case of many industrial facilties, chemicals are being pumped into our air with hardly a thought given to how those chemicals affect people over the long term.
USA Today, chemicals, pollution
December 24th, 2008 at 4:22 am
The country is going to suffocate itself… And this research only talks about the chemicals in the air.
The rain and humidity transfer these chemicals into water which even after being purified and filtered still carries some of these pollutants.
February 23rd, 2009 at 9:15 pm
[...] the safety of products given to our smallest and most vulnerable citizens should always be feasible. But again, it is just another example of a business’ bottom-line [...]