IN: Is air at 3 area schools toxic?

Note: Although this isn't technically about abuse, studies have found links between air quality and health and we felt it important enough to share with you.

By Tim Evans and Andy Gammill
Posted: December 8, 2008
http://www.indystar.com/article/20081208/LOCAL/812080356

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.

The three schools are among thousands in the U.S. where levels of air pollution may pose a health threat to children, based on an examination of data from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency.

An eight-month review of that data indicates the air outside at least 22 Indiana schools, including Pittsboro, may be even worse than the air in the Cincinnati suburb of Addyston, Ohio, where officials closed Meredith Hitchens Elementary School in 2005 after tests showed high levels of chemicals coming from a plastics plant across the street.

Those findings were bolstered by monitoring conducted at School 49, North Elementary and Pittsboro Elementary, which were among 95 schools in 30 states where air quality was examined as part of the project. Although those were the only metro-area schools where monitoring was done, the EPA data indicate similar problems might be found at many other schools in the state.

Should parents of children who attend these schools be concerned? Nobody really knows for sure. Here's why:

No federal, state or county agencies conduct ongoing monitoring at schools.

The EPA hasn't set a limit for how much of a substance can be in the air before some kind of action is required to cut pollution levels.

Few studies have examined the effects of toxic chemicals on children.

Schools rely on government
"There is more that could and should be done," said Janet McCabe, executive director of the Indiana advocacy group Improving Kids' Environment and a member of the Indianapolis Air Pollution Control Board.

"It would be great to have the ability to spot-check air quality near sensitive sites like schools, day cares and hospital."

That only happens now if a problem is suspected, which may be too late for children exposed to toxins that could affect their health now or later in life. Even then, the lines of authority detailing how such cases should be handled are not clear.

"The Indiana Department of Education is committed to ensuring the health and safety of Indiana students," spokesman Jason Bearce said, "but school air quality and related environmental issues do not fall under our purview."

Richard Myers, the environmental safety and risk management officer for Indianapolis Public Schools, said his department routinely tests air quality inside schools for airflow, oxygen content and the presence of carbon monoxide but not for the presence of heavy metals or other toxic chemicals.

IPS, he said, typically relies on the Air Pollution Control Board and the Marion County Health Department to alert it to potential problems from outside air.

But neither the Indiana Department of Environmental Management nor state and local health departments do widespread, comprehensive monitoring near schools.

Myers was unaware that EPA's models predict School 49 would be in the path of dangerous pollutants. The USA Today analysis suggested that further testing would be warranted there.

The district had expected that local and state environmental agencies would alert it to potential hazards after major problems tied to air pollution were discovered at School 21, Myers said.

Those problems were discovered after officials, responding to complaints from residents, determined that high levels of pollutants created an elevated risk of cancer near School 21, which is not far from Schools 46 and 49. IDEM then sought a grant for a two-year monitoring project, which is winding down. Findings should be made public next year.

"I would have thought after our experiences at School 21 that we would have had concerned regulators already talking to us," Myers said. "Now that we're aware of this situation, we're going to get that information, I guarantee you that."

School Board member W. Diane Arnold, who represents the area that includes School 49, said she had always thought someone in another government agency was responsible for keeping tabs on air pollution and how it might affect children, whether in their schools or in their homes.

"I leave that to the government -- whether city, state or federal, whoever regulates air quality," she said. "Certainly that should be done and the results should be shared not only with us or the parents of the children in our schools but the people in the neighborhoods."

Leo Philbin, superintendent of Northwest Hendricks Schools, which includes Pittsboro Elementary, said he was unaware of any potential health threat from air pollution. He said he would look into the findings.

Need for more information
Experts disagree on whether the levels of dangerous pollutants -- including benzene, chromium, manganese and toluene -- found during the recent monitoring project at the schools pose a serious health threat.

Patrick Breysse, a professor at Johns Hopkins University's School of Public Health, said results from monitoring at the three metro-area schools "point very clearly to the need for systematic evaluation." He worked with USA Today and other Gannett newspapers on the project.

Parents and school officials "should not take these results and abandon their schools," Breysse cautioned. "But they certainly need to start asking people in authority to find out more."

The results, however, are not alarming to William Beranek Jr., president of the Indiana Environmental Institute, a nonpartisan policy institute.

"The levels of benzene (found at the schools) are about the normal concentration you would expect in an urban area," said Beranek, who has a doctorate in chemistry. "That comes from gasoline and the transportation system."

Beranek said the monitoring project was too limited to provide an accurate picture of the potential threat from pollution. Still, he said, it is important to focus attention on air quality near schools and across communities.

McCabe, from Improving Kids' Environment, agreed with Beranek's assessment of the monitoring results.

"I'm not going to say, 'Get those kids out of those schools,' " based on those levels, she said.

Although she would like to see more data, she said that placing monitors at all schools would be cost-prohibitive.

"We'll just never be able to monitor at every school," said McCabe, who headed IDEM's office of air quality from 1998 to 2004.

Instead, she said, school and government officials must do a better job of working together to make other changes that will improve air quality and address specific pollution threats. That can be done by instituting policies such as bans on vehicles idling outside schools and planning that does not allow schools to be built near pollution sources.

She and Beranek said local, state and federal officials also must do more with the information they already have on industrial discharges and from the monitoring that is being done on smog near specific industries.

The USA Today project found that the EPA and many states are not using that information or the EPA's own models to look for potential problems around schools. Ruth McCully, head of the EPA's Office of Children's Health Protection, doesn't see that as her role.

"It's not my job responsibility to initiate those types of activities," said McCully, who took over this year.

Her predecessor, however, said the current system leaves children and parents in limbo.

"There are health and safety standards for adults in the workplace, but there are no standards for children at schools," said Ramona Trovato, former director of the office.

"If a parent complains, there's no law that requires anybody to do anything. It's beyond belief."

Call Star reporter Tim Evans at (317) 444-6204.

USA Today reporters Blake Morrison and Brad Heath contributed to this story.