WASHINGTON — The federal
government's first attempt to assess the dangers from air pollution around schools
is nearing completion, and the findings underscore the need for more extensive
air monitoring, especially in pollution hot spots, the head of the Environmental Protection Agency says.
"There is work to be done still
on air quality," EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson says. "The best
result would be to find that all of our concerns were overblown, but we're not
finding this in every case."
Most of the air monitoring completed
so far has not found dangerous levels of pollution, the EPA says, but outside a
handful of schools, the tests showed concentrations of toxic chemicals higher
than what the government typically considers to be safe for long-term exposure.
The EPA's study came in response to a 2008 USA TODAY investigation that
identified hundreds of schools where the air appeared to be rife with
industrial pollution. In the past three years, the EPA has gathered air samples
outside 63 schools in 22 states.
Among the most troubling results:
•Samples taken outside three schools
in Ohio and West
Virginia showed elevated levels of manganese, a neurotoxin that can
cause mental and emotional problems. At East Elementary School in East
Liverpool, Ohio, samples collected in 2009 showed average levels well above
what the EPA considers safe for long-term exposure.
•Tests outside at least 15 schools
detected high levels of acrolein, a chemical that can irritate the eyes and
throat, and that — in a far more potent form — had been used as a chemical
weapon during World War I. The EPA suspects those readings were caused by
problems with the tests but the agency is taking more samples to be sure.
•Samples near a Portland, Ore.,
school found "slightly elevated" levels of cadmium, a carcinogen. The
state Department of Environmental Quality has detected cadmium levels nearby
before but has said it cannot identify the source.
The EPA plans to award $2.5 million
in grants later this year for additional air monitoring in communities. The
agency set up the program as a follow-up to its school study.
The lack of monitoring has left a
blind spot for the nation's environmental regulators, says John Walke, clean
air director for the Natural Resources Defense Council.
"It's a longstanding dirty little secret of the Clean
Air Act that neither regulators nor the public knows what hazardous
air pollutants and how much are coming from smokestacks in our communities
because the monitoring is abysmal," he says.
Children are especially vulnerable
to toxic chemicals, and new research suggests that the impact of pollution
around schools can also threaten the quality of their education.
A study published in May in the
journal Health
Affairs found that children were more likely to be absent and
less likely to meet minimum standards in English and math if they attended
schools in areas with high levels of air pollution.
"These patterns appear strong
enough that they need to be taken seriously," says University
of Michigan professor Paul Mohai, a study author.
The EPA expects to complete its air
monitoring efforts this summer.
EPA spokesman Brendan Gilfillan says
the agency plans follow-up tests at about a third of the schools it monitored.
Those new tests are needed because the initial tests showed higher levels of
pollution than the EPA considered acceptable, or because the factories that
regulators suspect are the principal sources of pollution were not operating at
their normal capacity during the initial tests, Gilfillan says.
As those tests continue, regulators
and activists are taking action near other schools that were not part of the
EPA's assessment:
•In Mecca, Calif., regulators halted shipments to a waste treatment
plant last month because of odors so powerful that paramedics were summoned to
Saul Martinez Elementary School several times to treat students and teachers
who became sick from the fumes. Sen. Barbara
Boxer, D-Calif., asked the EPA to take immediate action.
•In Natrona Heights, Pa., county health officials said levels of
lead in the air outside the local high school dropped after a nearby steel mill
moved some of its operations to another facility. The Allegheny County Health
Department's tests — which came in response to USA TODAY's investigation —
showed elevated levels of lead and manganese outside the school in 2009.
Officials concluded the metals were coming from a melt shop at an Allegheny
Ludlum Corp. steel mill less than a mile away.
In a settlement last year with the
county and the EPA, Allegheny Ludlum agreed to move its melting operation to a
nearby plant that had been outfitted with more advanced pollution controls. The
move had a "very dramatic" impact on lead levels outside the schools,
says Darrell Stern, the head of the county health department's air quality
unit.
•In Portland, Ore., a community group called Neighbors for Clean
Air is negotiating an agreement that could require new pollution controls for a
steel plant blocks away from Chapman Elementary School. Mary Peveto founded the
group two years ago after seeing USA TODAY's investigation.
"If you're in a hot spot, it's
up to you to muster an outcry and create solutions," she says.
The mill's operator, ESCO Corp.,
expects the agreement will include more than $2 million worth of new measures
to reduce emissions from the plant, says Carter Webb, the company's
environmental affairs manager. | 
