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WASHINGTON, Mar 19, 2001 (United Press International via COMTEX) -- A number of children around the country are going to schools situated on or near sites with potentially harmful toxic waste or pollution, warns the woman who exposed the Love Canal cancer cluster twenty years ago.
"Many schoolchildren are being expose daily to industrial toxins," Lois Gibbs told United Press International. "Others are being exposed to toxic pesticides sprayed inside schools. Children are still developing physically and their organs and nervous systems are more susceptible to toxins than those of adults."
Gibbs, who heads the Center for Health, Environment and Justice, said other schools, many of them just built or in the planning stages, will be constructed on former chemical dumping grounds and landfills unless the government and communities work quickly to stop them.
In a report release today, the center charges that soaring enrollment rates in many areas have led to new schools being built on toxic sites. The report, "Poisoned Schools: Invisible Threats, Visible Actions," offers guidelines to prohibit new school construction on abandoned landfills, industrial waste sites or next to heavily polluting industries.
In Marion, Ohio, parents became concerned about abnormally high rates of leukemia in students and workers at River Valley High School, which was built over a former military chemical dumping ground from the 1950s.
The report documents this and other sites where unusual rates of cancers have been found in persons who attended schools built over toxic sites.
"We just want people to wake up to the disturbing prospect that schools are built on cheap land, and that often means landfills and dumps," Gibbs said. "Right now there are no guidelines in place to direct school systems where to locate new schools and the need for cheap land has resulted in far too many schools being built on hazardous sites."
Among the many other contaminated school sites cited in the report is a new high school in Houston, Texas, which lies within a quarter mile of five chemical industrial plants that she said put out nearly five million pounds of toxic pollution into the air every year.
In Elmira, N.Y., 24 students, 5 teachers and 3 custodial workers from the same high school have been diagnosed with cancer. The report charges the school was built in 1977 on top of a manufacturing complex known to be contaminated by PCBs, arsenic, lead and petroleum. A recent New York State Department of Health investigation confirmed an unusually high incidence of testicular cancer among the current and former students.
In Jacksonville, Fla., an elementary school was built on a former dumping ground for incinerator ash where high levels of contamination have been found, including lead, dioxins and PCBs, the report also says.
"We've contacted the Environmental Protection Agency but we haven't heard anything," Gibbs said. "We've been incredibly disappointed. They've provided guidance on lead and asbestos, even radon -- but they have not addressed this important issue affecting children and families at these sites, especially those in poorer rural and industrial communities."
EPA officials declined to comment on the report.
By KURT SAMSON, UPI Medical Writer
Copyright 2001 by United Press International.
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