2 years ago
WASHINGTON, DC (WUSA) - USA Today has found 435 schools nationwide are located within areas that could be called "toxic hot spots." In other words, areas where the presence of toxic chemicals should warrant further investigation to identify potential health hazards.
Key Elementary School in NW, DC was ranked in the sixth percentile of 127,800 schools nationwide for its exposure to potentially hazardous chemicals. That means only 6,746 schools nationwide have worse air.
The Dalecarlia Water Treatment Plant was one of several sources of the chlorine. Key's ranking was the highest in the District, but lower than most schools in states with heavy industry.
Some parents with children attending the school say they are concerned and want more information.
"I think that's bad news. That's a lot of chlorine in the air," said Wendy Lynch.
"When you live in a neighborhood, you're not moving because of air quality necessarily. It's not a choice everyone has," said Kimberly Shotwell.
It's possible to search by state and school name on the USA Today website to determine a particular school's ranking, the pollutants present and and the source of thetoxic pollution. No schools in the Washington region are located in toxic hotspots.
"We're seeing most local schools are far, far lowe, maybe 250 times lower than the worst polluted schools in the nation," said Blake Morrison, Deputy Enterprise Editor at USA Today.
Experts USA TODAY interviewed said little is known about interactions among and between chemicals. What is known is that kids are particularly vulnerable to toxic chemicals. They breathe more air in proportion to their weight than adults do, and because their bodies are still developing, they process toxic chemicals differently. What they're exposed to as kids might not manifest itself as health problems until years, even decades later.
The purpose of USA TODAY's efforts was to identify schools where further investigation is warranted , places where regulators might want to look more closely at what kids are exposed to outside their schools. The USA Today investigation used EPA figures on industrial plant emissions from 2005 - the latest year available.
"One of the reasons we were interested is because kids are particularly susceptible to these kinds of chemicals. We don't know much about how it affects them and that's part of the problem," said Morrison.
The EPA has never done what USA TODAY did, which is use its best gauge of industrial pollution to look at what sort of toxic chemicals might be outside our nation's schools. The modeling isn't definitive. It simply directs you where to look more closely. Not every school can have a detailed air monitoring system outside, so government models like the one USA TODAY used should give authorities insights into where they need to look more closely.
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