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"A is for Air Pollution II: the Toxic Threat to Texas Schools"
Read the Press release
Summary
More than 142,000 children in Texas go to school in the shadow of refineries and
chemical plants that every year are allowed to collectively release millions of pounds
of toxic chemicals known to cause cancer, birth defects, learning disabilities and other
serious health problems.
While it is no surprise that Texas is home to big oil and chemical companies, few
parents realize that the state of Texas has no plan or protocol to ensure that the air
children breathe at schools near toxic emitters is safe. Central to this problem is that
there is no consistent air monitoring at these schools or on the fencelines of neighboring plants. In addition, the state's established thresholds for how much pollution is
safe to endure are grossly insufficient and essentially toothless.
Children are especially vulnerable to chemical pollution because studies show they
are more sensitive to air pollution than adults. They tend to exercise more,are
outside more often,and breathe lower to the ground where pollution tends to settle.
Their bodies' biological defense systems are still developing and more vulnerable to
chemical pollution. Despite this vulnerability, parents are not required to be notified
of the potential threat of industrial "second-hand" smoke that can drift into classrooms where their children are enrolled. Parents have the Right-to-Know this information.
This study seeks to clearly demonstrate the risks to children by finding out how
many children are going to schools that are near major toxic polluters. We used state-
of-the-art GIS (Geographic Information Systems), industry-reported emissions
information and publicly available data to study nine Texas counties home to large
numbers of refineries and chemical plants. These eight counties are Ector, El Paso,
Galveston, Gregg, Harris, Jefferson, Nueces and Orange.
The schools and children identified in this report at referred to as "At-Risk" because
of their proximity to high levels of highly dangerous pollution.
General findings:
- In just eight Texas counties,63%of all the toxic emissions from the entire
petroleum and chemical industry are emitted within two miles of a school.
- In these counties,142,147 children attend school within a two mile radius of
one or more refineries or chemical plants.
- There are 100 refineries and chemical plants near 216 schools in the studied
counties.
- In the year 2000 they released into the air nearly 40,000,000 pounds of toxic
pollutants,some of which are known to cause cancer,learning disabilities,
birth defects and other serious health problems.
- All of Texas' petroleum and chemical plants collectively emitted 63,674,430
pounds of air toxics in 2000.
READ THE ENTIRE STUDY Adobe pdf file 1.36Mb
SEE THE MAPS AND SCHOOLS/POLLUTION DATA:
(all files are Adobe pdf format)
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