In August, the EPA put air samplers outside of 63 schools in 22 states. (Photo courtesy of the National Cancer Institute)
The US Environmental Protection Agency
is wrapping up a 60-day initiative
looking at toxic air pollution around
schools. They’re looking to gauge the
health effects linked to pollution exposure.
Many of the schools were chosen based
on how close they were to heavy industry.
Gigi Douban reports:
Transcript
The US Environmental Protection Agency
is wrapping up a 60-day initiative
looking at toxic air pollution around
schools. They’re looking to gauge the
health effects linked to pollution exposure.
Many of the schools were chosen based
on how close they were to heavy industry.
Gigi Douban reports:
It’s pretty much a given: put a school near heavy industry and an interstate, and those
kids are going to be breathing polluted air. What the EPA didn’t know was just how
polluted it would be. So the agency in August put air samplers outside of 63 schools in
22 states. One of those schools is Lewis Elementary in Birmingham, Alabama.
(sound of calling out names for carpool)
As he does every day, Richard Gooden is waiting in the carpool line to pick up his
granddaughter, who attends pre-K at the school. Not far away, near the basketball
court, there’s an air pollution monitor. Gooden, for one, was glad it was there. Living
up the hill from the American Cast Iron Pipe Company, he’s seen thick layers of dust
settle on his windows.
“I got a little white house with vinyl siding, and you can’t tell there’s vinyl hardly
because of the dirt coming from that pipe shop.”
Gooden has lived in that house for 43 years. His granddaughter spends most days
there, and he worries about her health and his own.
“I had a triple heart bypass a while back. I’m just wondering is that air completely
clean to breathe.”
The EPA plans to have some answers. In Birmingham, the Jefferson County Health
Department is collecting the data on the EPA’s behalf. Corey Masuca is the county’s
senior air pollution control engineer. He says they’re screening for about 100 different
pollutants.
“We looked for them, then, we found them.”
So far, he says, only three of those – benzene, manganese and acrolein – were found
at high levels. Most concerning, acrolein levels were more than 100 times higher than
what the government considers safe. Where does it come from?
“Pretty much any type of combustion source – whether it’s combustion coal, or
fuels from a plant, or fuel from a car. It even emanates from cigarette smoke, so it’s
fairly ubiquitous.”
But ubiquitous doesn’t mean safe. In fact, excess exposure to manganese can cause
brain damage. Acrolein can damage the lungs, and benzene is a carcinogen.
Masuca says the findings aren’t a major cause for concern. But Janice Nolen,
Assistant Vice-President for Policy and Advocacy at the American Lung Association,
disagrees.
“The fact that it’s in lots of places doesn’t mean it is not a big problem. It means
that we have a lot of things that we need to clean up.”
And when it comes to schools, she says, industrial pollution isn’t the whole picture.
Diesel buses drive right up to the school doors every day. Inside schools, poor
ventilation and even things like some glues can lead to health problems.
Yet there are definite links between these air toxins and heavy industry. So Masuca, of
the Jefferson County Health Department, says just knowing what’s out there is a huge
first step. Next they’ll come up with ways to reduce exposure. Things like having kids
stay indoors during recess on days when pollution levels seem to be highest.
Janice Nolen of the American Lung Association hopes monitoring will lead to stricter
controls on nearby industry. And maybe spark even a little bit of self-regulation.
“Letting people know about what’s in the air often raises public awareness and
causes industry to rethink what they’re doing and come up with less toxic ways to
produce their products.”
She says this research can galvanize communities into action. Most of the parents I
spoke with at Lewis Elementary didn’t know a thing about the EPA’s monitoring
program. But perhaps once the EPA gathers long-term data on schools across the
country in the months to come, that will change.
For The Environment Report, I’m Gigi Douban.
