May 9, 2011
Ann Arbor, MI – Air pollution from industrial sources near Michigan public schools jeopardizes children’s health and academic success, according to a new study from University of Michigan researchers.
The researchers found that schools located in areas with the state’s highest industrial air pollution levels had the lowest attendance rates—an indicator of poor health—as well as the highest proportions of students who failed to meet state educational testing standards.
The researchers examined the distribution of all 3,660 public elementary, middle, junior high and high schools in the state and found that 62.5 percent of them were located in places with high levels of air pollution from industrial sources.
The majority of the most-polluted sites in Michigan are in the southern half of the state’s Lower Peninsula, although several places in the Upper Peninsula fall into the most-polluted category. In the Lower Peninsula, the most-polluted locations form a horseshoe-shaped band stretching from the Thumb region south to the Ohio border, then west to Lake Michigan and north to Grand Rapids and Muskegon. Locations with the highest levels of industrial air pollution include the Detroit metropolitan area, the Grand Rapids area and the Muskegon area.
The authors conclude that Michigan and other states should require an environmental-quality analysis when education officials are considering sites for new schools.
Geographic information system software was used to digitally map the 3,660 schools and to then overlay industrial air pollution data from the Environmental Protection Agency’s Risk-Screening Environmental Indicator data base.
Though the study focused primarily on the effects of industrial air pollutants, nearly identical patterns were found when the researchers analyzed data from the 2005 National Air Toxic Assessment, which includes on-road mobile sources such as cars, trucks and buses, as well as non-road mobile sources such as airplanes, tractors and lawnmowers.
What explains this pattern of schools located near industrial pollution sources?
The authors suggest that the large amount of land that a school requires and the costs of land acquisition probably mean that officials searching for new school locations focus on areas where property values are low, which may be near polluting industrial facilities, major highways and other potentially hazardous sites.
Half of all states, including Michigan, do not require any evaluation of the environmental quality of areas under consideration as sites for new schools, nor do they prohibit building new industrial facilities and highways near existing schools.
Children are known to be more vulnerable than adults to the effects of pollution. Exposure to environmental pollutants during important times of physiological development can lead to long-lasting health problems, dysfunction and disease, the experts said.
The authors offer four policy recommendations to address the problem:
- All potential school sites should be thoroughly analyzed, including tests of soil, water and air quality.
- Policies should be enacted to insist on a minimum distance between sources ofpollution and school locations.
- Environmental mitigation policies should be adopted to reduce children’s potential exposure to pollution.
- Oversight and enforcement at the national, state and local levels needs to ensure better school environments.
Ninety-five percent of the estimated industrial air pollution around schools comes from 12 chemicals: diisocyanates, manganese, sulfuric acid, nickel, chlorine, chromium, trimethylbenzene, hydrochloric acid, molybdenum trioxide, lead, cobalt and glycol ethers.
These pollutants come from a variety of sources, including the motor vehicle, steel and chemical- manufacturing industries, power plants, rubber and plastic products manufacturers, and lumber and wood products manufacturers. The 12 chemicals are suspected of producing a wide variety of health effects, including increased risk of respiratory, cardiovascular, developmental and neurological disorders, as well as cancer.
SOURCE: University of Michigan researchers