A Circle of Poison and Poverty

Imagine for a moment that you live in a community that is poor. You work every day in the service industry but just can’t make enough money to move to a better neighborhood. Now imagine that you have a young child who is gifted with high level of intelligence. You want to send your child to a school that can challenge her to help reach her potential. But, you can’t because of your limited income.

This is how one mother described her situation to me recently in Detroit, Michigan. She went on to say that the area around her home and school had lead levels, left over from former lead smelter activities, which were three times the legal standard. Her child and her neighbor’s children began their lives with so much potential. Today, the children are lead poisoned and are having difficulty passing the state school standardize tests. In fact, so many children are failing the standardized tests that their school is about to be closed, their teachers fired and their community further impacted by another empty building and no neighborhood school.

When people hear about the struggles in environmental justice communities they often only think about the immediate pollution and health impacts in a low wealth community. But to understand it one level deeper you need to understand that families living in these communities are really trapped. If you were only to look at their children’s ability to get out of poverty and reach the birth potential, it speaks volumes about the real world situation.

Their children cannot reach their potential because they are impacted by the chemicals like lead in their environments. Often young people, because they are frustrated in trying to achieve in school while faced with asthma, learning disabilities, and the inability to maintain attention students end up dropping out of school. Students weren’t born with the inability to achieve; it was due to their exposures to lead and other toxic environmental chemicals that they developed problems. Once students drop out of school they have little ability to improve their economic status and thus continue the family’s legacy of poverty.

Those who have the power to change this cycle of poison and poverty choose not to. Instead they cover their intentional neglect by blaming the victims, the parents, teachers, and community leaders. Not only do those in power blame the innocent, they exasperate the problem by ignoring the existing pollution while placing more polluting faculties in the area. I think it was Mayor Bloomberg who said, “Do you really want me to put that smokestack in downtown Manhattan?” when community leaders near NYC navy yard objected to an incinerator being added to their burdens.

I’m not sure how to change this situation. It is a larger societal crisis that will take the majority of people to demand change. Today it is only the voices of the desperate parents, frustrated teachers that sound the alarm and cry for justice. This must change.

Why is a middle school near a fertilizer plant?

The entire community of West, Texas has been rocked by the massive explosion of a fertilizer plant Wednesday evening. While rescuers work tireless to find all survivors, reports are coming in about the physical damages of the surrounding buildings.

More than 150 buildings remain charred; many with structures so damaged that search teams are not being permitted to enter. One local middle school was along the devastated pathway.

West Middle School saw significant roofing damage after the explosion. Volatile chemicals such as ammonium nitrate remain present in the air and school officials have warned the community to “stay away from all school property” until further notice.

Read more.

Our Children’s Schools Matter – When We Fail-They Fail

It is sad that across the country as new youngsters are entering school they are placed in harm’s way. Their emotions are mixed worried about leaving their home, daily environment and routine, while at the same time excited about their new experiences.  But toxic dangers in the air or nearby are not part of their mantra.

Yet in schools across the country parents are concerned that the location of the school building will threaten the health of their children and possible their children’s ability to lean. For example, in Richmond, Virginia there is a petition, asking the Richmond School Board to ensure the preschoolers of Norrell Elementary, near a landfill are being educated in a safe environment.  Although the petition has gained some national attention to an issue, there hasn’t been any resolution to longstanding concerns to Richmond, Virginia residents.  It hasn’t provided the pressure yet to force authorities to answer parents questions.

It has with 27,370 signatures created awareness about schools on landfills across the country and beyond. And, signatures on this petition has provided energy to beleaguered city residents who feel like they’ve been disregarded and disrespected by authorities.  A new round of testing has been committed of the school building grounds near the landfill but there is no evidence of safety.

“Local resident Kim Allen said, these developments have empowered us as we’ve come to know ourselves as people who make a difference in our community.  I, and other private citizens like me, are lending a voice to concern for the safety of children, children like my four-year-old nephew Malachi. We speak on behalf of ourselves and our families. Being a private citizen is a privilege and a powerful place to stand when addressing the safety of the children who attend Norrell Elementary school.

The question I asked myself was, Would I be okay with Malachi being in the Norrell School building for 6 hours a day, 5 days a week?  My answer . . . I don’t know. Given that concern and the urgent nature of the matter, I helped to initiate the petition.”

Despite working for over thirty years at CHEJ I’m still shocked by the blatant disregard for children’s health year after year.  Schools continue to be built on or near dumpsites like Ms. Allen speaks about or the school built in Detroit literally on top of a Superfund site. Most of these schools, not surprisingly, serve low wealth and communities of color.

Further harming everyone in the school family, when the children fail at the standardized testing it is the parents or the teachers fault — not the fault of the chemicals that inhabit their ability to learn or cause them to be sick and absent too often from school to keep up.

In Houston, Texas their recently built high school, which houses 3,500 students, is encircled by a dozen chemical facilities.  So close that if there is an accident or release at any of them, the children are trapped, left only to put wet paper towels along the window sills.  Yet, the releases from these facilities are constant and as children enter, leave or go outdoors for recess or sports they are exposed to air pollution daily.  Like the other schools when these young people fail at meeting the goals of standardized testing their parents and teachers are blamed.

It is time for all Americans to stand up and speak out about putting our children in harm’s way.  It is our tax dollars that are building these schools and we should have laws that compel schools authorities to build places of learning in safe environments.  Enough is enough.  Our children matter and are the future of our country.

Love Canal Déjávu – Ground Hog Day?

I couldn’t believe what I was hearing and seeing when I clicked on a link that connected me with a news story about Love Canal by the local ABC TV station in Buffalo. There in front of a camera was a young woman who reminded me of myself 35 years ago. Christen Morris talked about chemicals that have become visible, about trees dying, pets with cancer and growths, and many people who are sick.

I can remember saying those same words, making that same case in 1978 to EPA and the NYS Department of Environmental Conservation. Wow. At the same time as Ms Morris and others were speaking out about problems in the neighborhood, classmates who attended the 93rd Street School were sharing notes. 93rd Street School was located in the northern part of the community, and also demolished due to contamination. Former students, at a class reunion, began exchanging notes about how sick they were finding common concerns and disease. They believe their health related problems might be linked to exposure to Love Canal chemicals during their elementary school years.

Former student Laura Racine said, “I went to the reunion and decided to seek out all the kids that went to the 93rd Street School with and see if they were having health issues as well. And nine out of ten of them were having health issues.”

It is so hard to watch these news stories. It has never made any sense to me or other former residents of the area, why the state and federal government insisted on repopulating the northern part of the evacuation area or why they refused to follow the young children from both 99th and 93rd Street Schools. These are innocent people who were children and whose parents were assured that no long term health problems were likely. The public was assured that Love Canal was cleaned up, when actually the 20,000 tons of chemicals are still there, still in the center of the dump. Only a clay cap and trench system to capture anything that might move out horizontally was put in place. There’s absolutely no science that supports the government’s theory that the chemicals will stay put. All landfills leak and Love Canal is no exception. In fact, the Love Canal dump has no bottom. So, it leaks chemicals out the bottom every time the Niagara River levels drops . . . like in August for example.

The families living around the dump are not to blame. So many people want to – blame the victims. People were assured by every imaginable government agency that everything is fine. The most frequently used phrase to people who inquired was, “Love Canal is the most tested neighborhood in the country.” Of course that doesn’t mean its safe but those words along with assurance of safety people became convinced.

It will be painful to watch the new effort unfold as families with sickness and questions struggle to get those answers. I plan on helping where I can. To see recent news story click here.

Rhode Island Passes School Siting Law

As you know CHEJ and our network partners have been working on school siting for many years. USEPA finally passed their school siting guidelines in October 2011. Rhode Island is the first state to pass a law that reflects those protective school siting guidelines. Steve Fischbach and the local environmental justice communities that have been fighting for a decade– deserve a huge thank you for all their work to make this possible. Below are the details. On June 6th, Governor Lincoln Chafee signed into law the school siting legislation that has been working on for at least 3 years. This new law is probably the strongest law in the nation when it comes to addressing the problem of the siting of schools on contaminated sites. You can download the new law– click here

Victory Rhode Island School Siting Law Passed

As you know CHEJ and our network partners have been working on school siting for many years. USEPA finally passed their school siting guidelines in October 2011. Rhode Island is the first state to pass a law that reflects those protective school siting guidelines. Steve Fischbach and the local environmental justice communities that have been fighting for a decade– deserve a huge thank you for all their work to make this possible. Below are the details.

On June 6th, Governor Lincoln Chafee signed into law the school siting legislation that has been working on for at least 3 years. This new law is probably the strongest law in the nation when it comes to addressing the problem of the siting of schools on contaminated sites. You can download the new law at: http://www.rilin.state.ri.us/BillText/BillText12/SenateText12/S2277Aaa.pdf

1. Bans the construction of schools (including expanding an existing building and leasing of buildings for school purposes) on “any portion of a parcel of property for which, upon occupancy, there exists an ongoing potential for hazardous materials and/or petroleum to migrate as vapors or gases into the building from the subsurface of the parcel of property, including any potential failure of engineered remedies to address said vapors or gases.”

2. Bans the construction of schools (as explained above) on any portion of a parcel of property formerly used for industrial, manufacturing or landfill purposes that is contaminated by hazardous materials (other than an vapor intrusion site) unless the sponsor of the school project prepares a report for public comment that a.) outlines the projected cost of acquiring and cleaning up and monitoring the site in accordance with RI’s Contaminated Site Regulations, b.) projects the time required to clean up the site and c.) discusses the rationale for selecting a contaminated property for use as school purposes and an explains any alternatives to selecting said property considered by the project sponsor. This report must be put out for public comment, the project sponsor must respond to public comments, and the sponsor must consider the findings of the report when making a final selection of a site.

There are so many people to thank for this historic development, including the lead sponsors of the legislation: Senator Juan Pichardo (who way back in the day spoke out against using the Providence City Dump as a site for the schools that were the subject of the lawsuit filed back 1999) and Representative Tom Slater (whose district includes the school built on a vapor intrusion site); Nicole Poepping, the state environmental agency’s (DEM) legislative liaison and former board member of the EJ League of RI; and the members of the EJ Stakeholder Group set up by DEM as a result of that lawsuit, who worked to draft the bill.

CHEJ’s Childproofing Our Communities (CPOC) campaign is now called the Children’s Environmental Health Program (CEHP).

NEW NAME.  SAME CRITICAL FOCUS.

The founder and Executive Director of CHEJ, Lois Gibbs, was compelled to address children’s environmental health issues when in 1978 she discovered that her child’s school, her home and those of her neighbors were sitting on top of 20, 000 tons of toxic chemicals that was affecting the health of her family and her neighbors. Thru her struggle to demand justice for Love Canal residents, she discovered that no local, state or national organization existed to provide communities with strategic advice, guidance, training and technical assistance. The Center for Health, Environment & Justice (CHEJ) was created to address environmental toxins threatening communities.

After working with thousands of families seeking assistance on children’s environmental health issues, the Childproofing Our Communities (CPOC) Campaign was created in 2000 by a coalition of concerned parents, grandparents, and school employees to address health and environmental issues that affect the students and staff at the school. The coalition became the guiding force for CHEJ’s Child Proofing Our Communities Campaign which identified the main focus of collective work on school siting.

In 2011, the EPA released its School Siting Guidelines that will assist local decision makers with where to site a new school and consider environmental factors when making that decision. Over the years, CPOC in conjunction with local community leaders has been instrumental in holding federal/ state/ local agencies accountable for addressing environmental issues that may harm a school environment. The final release of these guidelines was an extraordinary victory demonstrating the power of the grassroots!

NEW NAME. Often people were confused about the focus of CPOC and could not relate to the name Childproofing Our Communities. In continuing with the tradition of educating and empowering communities, CHEJ changed the name to the Children’s Environmental Health Program (CEHP). We listened and changed the campaign name to make sure everyone understood the intent of our program.

SAME CRITICAL FOCUS. Not a new project or campaign but a renewed dedication to tackling the tough subject area of addressing environmental hazards that could pose a threat to children where they live, play, learn, eat, and pray.

New Resources. If you have not visited our website lately, www.chej.org, check out new resources and tools available to assist you with your local fight.

Rather it’s tackling:

a proposal to build a new school near an industrial complex- check out our new school siting fact sheets that can help with organizing the community and assist in enacting a local policy;

dealing with an existing school built before 1979 that has fluorescent light fixtures that contain a banned, toxic substance called PCB – our PCB-Free School Zone has fact sheets that gives an overview of the problem of PCBs in schools and identify action steps that can be taken to address              contamination;

or interested in learning more about PVC- free products –  the PVC-Free Schools campaign encourages schools to get rid of the poison plastic in favor of safer alternatives

We have a wealth of resources and tools available to assist you with your local issue.

Focus on Schools. Focus on Schools webpage is a snapshot of projects and resources CHEJ offers on its website that pertains to schools and children’s environmental health. You will also find this information on CHEJ’s campaign web pages.

Green Flag Program. The Green Flag School Program for environmental leadership provides a framework for students to become environmental leaders and contribute to positive change in their communities.  Through the free program, students of all ages learn environmental concepts, investigate their schools, and identify solutions for making their schools safer and healthier.

For additional information or questions, please contact CHEJ at (703) 237-2249 or chej@chej.org.

Study finds risk to children from coal-tar sealants

Children living next to driveways or parking lots coated with coal tar are exposed to significantly higher doses of cancer-causing chemicals than those living near untreated asphalt, according to a study that raises new questions about commonly used pavement sealants.

Researchers from Baylor University and the U.S. Geological Survey also found that children living near areas treated with coal-tar-based sealants ingest twice as many polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAHs) from contaminated dust tracked into their homes as they do from food.

The peer-reviewed study, and other new research documenting how coal-tar sealants emit high levels of troublesome chemicals into the air, comes as several cities in the Midwest, South and East are trying to ban the products’ use on playgrounds, parking lots and driveways. Some major retailers have pulled the products from their shelves, but coal-tar sealants remain widely available elsewhere.

“There’s been a long-held assumption that diet is the major source of exposure for children,” said Peter Van Metre, a USGS scientist who co-authored the studies. “But it turns out that dust ingestion is a more significant pathway.”

About 85 million gallons of coal-tar-based sealants are sold in the United States every year, mostly east of the Mississippi River, according to industry estimates. The sealants, promoted as a way to extend the life of asphalt and brighten it every few years with a fresh black sheen, are sprayed by contractors or spread by homeowners.

During the past decade, studies have identified coal-tar sealants as a major source of PAHs, toxic chemicals that can cause cancer and other health problems. Pavement sealants made with coal tar can contain as much as 50 percent PAHs by weight, substantially more than alternatives made with asphalt.

Anne LeHuray, executive director of the Pavement Coatings Technology Council, an industry trade group, said she was reviewing the new findings.

“It appears they have some other agenda here, which is to ban coal-tar-based pavement sealants,” she said of the government scientists.

LeHuray and other industry representatives have argued that vehicle exhaust, wood smoke and grilled hamburgers are more significant sources of the toxic chemicals than coal tar.

But the latest USGS research estimates that annual emissions of PAHs from the application of coal-tar-based sealants exceed the amount from vehicle exhaust. Two hours after application, emissions were 30,000 times higher than those from unsealed pavement, one of the new studies found. Parking lots with 3- to 8-year-old sealant released 60 times more PAHs to the air than parking lots without sealant.

By Michael Hawthorne of the Chicago Tribune

The studies are published in the scientific journals Chemosphere, Atmospheric Environment and Environmental Pollution.

[Read more and to download study]

CHEJ Group Training Call: PCBs in Schools: An Invisible Threat to the School Environment

Did you know that schools that were built prior to 1979 may have old lighting fixtures that contain a toxic chemical called polychlorinated biphenyls or PCB’s? In New York City public schools, testing uncovered high levels of PCBs coming from old lighting fixtures and now the city is replacing the lights.  The PCB levels found in air are a health risk for school children and school personnel. Learn how you can find out if your child’s school fluorescent lights contain PCBs by joining our briefing call.

Join our panel of speakers on Tuesday, February 21st at Noon to 1:00 PM (EST) for a Training Call on “PCBs in Schools: An Invisible Threat to the School Environment”.

· Makia Burns, CHEJ’s Childproofing Our Communities Campaign Coordinator, will outline the problem of this banned chemical, PCBs, in the school environment.

· Dr. David Carpenter, Director, Institute for Health and the Environment at the University at Albany, will discuss the health effects of PCBs and children’s special vulnerabilities to chemical exposure.

· Anne Rabe, CHEJ’s Be Safe Campaign Coordinator, will discuss how you can take action on this problem and possible funding for schools to replace toxic lights.

After the presentations, a 30 minute question and answer session will be held.

About the speakers:

Makia Burns, CHEJ’s Child Proofing Our Communities (CPOC) Campaign Coordinator joined CHEJ in 2010. The CPOC campaign educates communities on children’s special health vulnerabilities and brings together community leaders to collaborate on efforts to prevent harm from toxic exposures in their communities.  Makia works with groups from across the country faced with toxic hazards and assists them with developing viable solutions. With over 10 years of labor organizing experience, her specialty is campaign coordination and strategy. She is credited with organizing thousands of new union members.

Dr. David Carpenter, Director, Institute for Health and the Environment at the University at Albany is a national expert on PCBs. He directed a large, interdisciplinary study on the PCB contamination from the General Motors Foundry Site in Massena, NY, which is adjacent to the Mohawk Akwesasne Nation, a Native American community that traditionally eat fish from waters heavily contaminated with PCBs.  Dr. Carpenter has conducted health studies of other PCB-exposed populations, including an Alaskan Native population living on St. Lawrence Island, residents of Anniston, Alabama who live near to the Monsanto PCB manufacturing plant, and residents living along the PCB-contaminated portions of New York’s Hudson River and Massachusetts’s Housatonic River. He has published numerous articles on human exposure to PCBs and experimental studies with animals exposed to PCBs.

Anne Rabe, CHEJ’s Be Safe Campaign Coordinator, has over 30 years of organizing experience on environmental issues.  For 18 years, she was Director of Citizens’ Environmental Coalition, a statewide grassroots organization in New York State helping communities harmed by toxic pollution and organizing campaigns on State Superfund, air pollution, and other issues. She co-founded the NYS Labor & Environment Network, a coalition of labor and environmental groups working on corporate accountability, and Don’t Waste New York, a statewide organization that successfully stopped a proposed nuclear waste dump.  From 1980 to today, she has organized a community/labor campaign on the NL Industries uranium waste dump in Colonie, NY. She has a BA in Political Science/Journalism from the State University at Albany, and has received eleven regional and national awards for her environmental work.

RSVP today by emailing jkramb@chej.org

Chicago, We have a Problem! Another School Siting Gone Bad

Since 2000, CHEJ’s Childproofing Our Communities (CPOC) campaign has been working on environmental school based issues and specifically school siting. What is school siting? School Siting is the process of where to locate a school facility. For decades this has been a contentious problem for decision makers because often where to place a school can be influenced by the budget. Decision makers have been enticed into purchasing ridiculously low cost land or property often not taking into consideration the cost to remediate or clean-up any toxic contamination. This oversight has cost school districts extra millions of dollars to clean-up site and even more because often on-going monitoring must be put in place.

There have been many examples of poor planning of where to place a school. The Belmont Learning Complex in Los Angeles was built on top of a former oil field full of explosive and toxic gases and other contaminants. The full environmental assessment was not completed until after $123 million was already put into the project. The site was them abandoned due to the health and safety concerns. A new school was built after a thorough cleanup. Over $300 million was spent on the project!

Now in Chicago there are plans to locate an elementary school on contaminated land in an industrial area. The proposed site is near a power plant and in an area already documented to have the state’s highest levels of toxic chromium and sulfates, a hazardous air pollutant and probable human carcinogen. [Read More]

The economic advantage that school boards hope for with the purchase of a contaminated site is rarely as beneficial as designed. Often the ones who have very little input in the process suffer the most, children. The community can have input in this process by making sure your state have some type of school siting policy. In October 2011, the EPA released its School Siting Guidelines to assist school districts in assessing environmental factors when deciding where to place a school. Although guidelines  does not pertain to existing schools, it can be used as a tool to enact a policy in your area and assess existing schools for potential environmental hazards.

Check out CHEJ’s School Siting Toolkit for additional information on how to take action on where to place a school facility in your area.

CHEJ’s Focus on Schools webpage offer resources on other children’s environmental health issues.