The Smokestack Effect: Toxic Air and America’s Schools
On December 8, 2008, a national newspaper, USA Today, launched an investigative series entitled “The Smokestack Effect: Toxic Air and America’s Schools.” [1] Using the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) most up-to-date Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators (RSEI) model for tracking toxic chemicals, USA TODAY spent eight months examining the impact of industrial pollution on the air outside schools across the nation. They developed and provide a query tool that can be used to search for schools based on name and location (city and state). The results indicate nearby facilities that may contribute to the air quality of the school, including a map with the location of the school and a list of what they classify as the “polluters most responsible for the toxics outside this school.” Additionally, the results list the chemicals most responsible for the toxicity of outside of this school, other area schools, and their national rank. The public contact number for the “polluting” companies is also included. The series can be found at http://smokestack.usatoday.com.
USA Today worked in cooperation with researchers and scientists at the University of Massachusetts-Amherst, Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, and the University of Maryland in College Park and gathered information on 127,800 public and private schools. In addition to preparing toxicity assessments using the RSEI model, USA TODAY monitored air quality near 95 public and private schools throughout the nation. USA Today employees and their affiliates reportedly placed monitors near schools the RSEI model suggested faced higher exposure to industrial pollution, and Johns-Hopkins and the University of Maryland analyzed and interpreted the air monitoring data. USA Today indicated that monitoring near schools was only for a comparatively short period of time (all monitoring periods were less than one week), thus, the findings may not reflect the extent of long-term exposure to pollutants at a particular location. For example, changes in wind direction or activity levels at a particular industrial facility can significantly influence the concentration levels near a school on any given day. The investigation did not include results for air quality within schools, only in the surrounding area.
After more than two years of evaluation, the researchers associated with the USA Today effort obtained data regarding releases of toxic chemicals from the RSEI model and formulated the toxicity assessments. The RSEI model uses information about TRI releases, but it also uses some generic assumptions such as default median stack heights, to estimate the impacts associated with each type of air and water release or transfer by every TRI facility. [2] USA Today indicated that the University of Massachusetts researchers used those findings to produce lists of chemicals that contributed to the air toxicity at each of the nation's 127,800 schools in 2005, the most recent year for which the EPA has completed its model. With the help of the University of Massachusetts researchers and other experts, and after consulting with the U.S. EPA, USA Today used those records to create three measures of a school’s exposure to industrial toxic chemicals: overall toxicity, exposure to cancer causing chemicals, and exposure to other toxic chemicals.
The RSEI model used in USA Today’s assessment is a computer-based screening tool that analyzes risk factors to put TRI data onto a chronic health context. [2] The U.S. EPA indicates that RSEI is often used by government regulatory agencies, journalists, industry, and others to examine trends, identify important emissions situations for follow-up, support community-based projects, and initially screen potential impacts of emissions. The TRI contains information about more than 650 toxic chemicals that are being used, manufactured, treated, transported, or released into the environment. [3] Some industries that manage these chemicals are required to report the locations and quantities of chemicals stored on-site to state and local governments, which is then submitted to the U.S. EPA. The U.S. EPA compiles this data in an on-line, publicly accessible national computerized database.
It should be noted that most facilities involved in the TRI program do not measure their emissions; rather, their reports to the TRI are estimates. Because these are estimates provided by the facilities, there are some important caveats of the RSEI model and strengths and limitations associated with RSEI, as described in detail by the U.S. EPA on their web site. Most importantly, unlike a formal risk assessment, RSEI does not describe a specific level of risk related to any particular disease; rather it highlights situations that may lead to potential chronic human health risks. Moreover, results of all screening-level tools, including RSEI, should be supplemented with additional analyses.
The USA Today methodology describes limitations of the assessment results due to the RSEI model and estimates of emissions. For example, as indicated above, the model makes certain assumptions about topography, the height of smokestacks and the toxicity of certain chemicals, any of which could influence the assessment of toxicity in a particular location. The RSEI model may under or over estimate exposure to toxic chemicals, and examples were provided of both. USA Today indicated that the model is not meant to assess risk, although it does appear that the USA Today results may be interpreted as such. For example, in the Question and Answer section of the series, USA Today indicates that those schools that rank above or below Meredith Hitchens Elementary School, about 450th in the rankings, would seem most at risk; Hitchens, near Cincinnati, was closed in 2005 after Ohio EPA found high levels of two cancer-causing chemicals in the air using air monitoring.
USA Today implies that a lower ranking indicates a greater likelihood that toxic chemicals could be present at levels that could threaten children’s health. However, USA Today further indicates that “there is no clear line between dangerous and safe in these rankings.” USA Today indicated that because it is based on reports from 2005 and includes only some potential sources of pollution, the RSEI model may not fully reflect the current situation at each school. For example, some facilities have closed since 2005, and others have opened. Also, large industrial sites account for only a fraction of the nation's toxic air pollution. The U.S. EPA estimates that in 2002, cars, smaller businesses, and other sources accounted for 85 percent of the toxic chemicals in the nation's air.
Experts say that the RSEI model is meant to be a screening tool, not an in-depth analysis, of where industrial pollution might pose problems. The score, derived from risk, is aunit-less measure that is not independently meaningful, but is a risk-related estimate that can be compared to other estimates calculated using the same methods. Although both USA Today and the U.S. EPA indicate that the model is not meant to be used as a risk assessment tool, readers of the series may interpret otherwise. USA Today refers to the investigation as a “toxicity assessment,” which could be mistaken for a “risk assessment.” As a result, companies identified by the USA Today query may face public scrutiny by not only the general public, but by government agencies who must answer the calls of the public. Furthermore, only 95 of the 127,800 public and private schools used in the investigation were monitored by USA Today; therefore, the data from the model is only backed up by a very small percentage of the total number of schools evaluated. If a facility reports releases of toxic chemicals on the TRI, it does not necessarily mean that facility is out of compliance. However, a quick internet search has revealed that companies are already put in the position where they must defend themselves when questioned about the investigation. This is despite the fact that USA Today used the U.S. EPA’s model to identify schools in “toxic hot spots”, a term used by the Louisville, Kentucky, and Southern Indiana Courier-Journal in an article from December 8, 2008, which is a task the U.S. EPA had never undertaken. [4] The Courier-Journal quotes a former member of the EPA advisory committee and the associate director of regulatory and technical relations for P&G North America, “I would think that responsible industry would be very supportive of monitoring." Statements such as this could promote further reaction from affected industries.
Sources:
[1] USA Today “The Smokestack Effect: Toxic Air and America’s Schools.” (December 2008). Retrieved December 10, 2008 from the World Wide Web: http://smokestack.usatoday.com.
[2] U.S. EPA “Risk-Screening Environmental Indicators (RSEI).” Retrieved December 10, 2008, from the World Wide Web: http://www.epa.gov/oppt/rsei/index.html.
[3] U.S. EPA “Toxics Release Inventory Program.” Retrieved December 10, 2008, from the World Wide Web: http://www.epa.gov/tri/.
[4] Louisville, Kentucky and Southern Indiana Courier-Journal. “The Smokestack Effect: Toxic Air and America’s Schools” (contributor Mark Hannon). December 8, 2008. Retrieved December 10, 2008, from the World Wide Web: http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20081208/MOMS/81208011/-1/SEARCH.
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