States' tests for toxic air near schools called into doubt

State environmental officials in Louisiana and Pennsylvania have released results of short-term air monitoring for toxic chemicals near schools, and in both states officials say the tests showed no health threats. Some residents, activists and other environmental experts question the findings–and worry that such declarations offer a false sense of security based on limited data. In both states, regulators took samples for periods of a few days or a few hours at each school. Such short-term monitoring is not uncommon, but both Louisiana and Pennsylvania have monitored other sites for significantly longer periods–often months–before reaching conclusions. In Pennsylvania, regulators took 12 days of air samples while a steel mill in the borough of Midland sat idle and another factory in Erie operated at 50% capacity. The tests showed "no unsafe levels of air pollutants or metals" outside schools in either city, the state Department of Environmental Protection reported. In Baton Rouge, regulators spent four hours checking the air quality outside Wyandotte Early Childhood Center, a preschool blocks from an ExxonMobil refinery. They say the air there meets "all known health and safety standards." "The real question here is whether the states were trying to catch these facilities' emissions at their worst or at their best," says John Balbus, chief health scientist for the Environmental Defense Fund and a member of the federal Environmental Protection Agency's children's health protection advisory committee. "Given the intermittent nature of toxic air emissions, there are obvious opportunities to miss problems that may in fact be serious." Activists in Louisiana and Pennsylvania are more pointed in their criticism of the state efforts. "It's preposterous," Marylee Orr, executive director of the Louisiana Environmental Action Network, says of the short amount of time the state monitored. "All they're trying to do is cover their butts," says Pennsylvania resident Dennis Stratton, an activist in Erie, where the state monitored at Wayne School. Monitoring by the two states came after USA TODAY used EPA data to identify schools that may be in toxic hot spots. The newspaper also teamed with Johns Hopkins University and the University of Maryland to take air samples near 95 schools in 30 states. At 64 of those locations–including five in Pennsylvania and five in Louisiana–the newspaper found elevated levels of chemicals. Among them: benzene, a known carcinogen, and chromium, which in one form can cause cancer. USA TODAY's monitoring lasted four to seven days. Johns Hopkins scientist Patrick Breysse, who oversaw USA TODAY's testing, called on the EPA and other authorities to monitor "more thoroughly." Earlier this week, the EPA pledged to do just that. Officials announced plans to monitor the air outside 50 to 100 schools where pollution problems might be most pronounced. EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson says results might take months. Officials in Louisiana and Pennsylvania say they are satisfied with what they found, despite limited testing. "Normally. .. when we have a known problem we calculate a yearly average" based on a year's worth of monitoring, says Jeff Miller, Pennsylvania's division chief for air quality monitoring. "We were looking for a problem, and we didn't find a problem" outside schools. In Louisiana, officials say they would have expected to see elevated levels of toxic chemicals at some of the 21 long-term monitors across the state if there were problems at the schools. One of those monitors is about 2 miles from Wyandotte. "If you don't think we've done enough, OK, I understand. It is what it is. But we're trying to do the right thing for the right reasons," says Michael Vince, administrator for Louisiana's air-quality assessment division. He says he is "very surprised" that many states have not done monitoring. "We felt like we needed to do something quickly." At some schools, Louisiana did not measure chemicals that EPA data suggest are to blame for most of the pollution. At S.P. Arnett Middle School in Westlake, La., and other schools, EPA data identified sulfuric acid and chlorine among the greatest health threats. The state's report shows it monitored for neither. In other cases, regulators found higher levels of some chemicals than USA TODAY's monitoring. One sample Louisiana officials took near Istrouma High School in Baton Rouge, for example, showed benzene levels four times higher than what USA TODAY's monitors detected last fall. Scientists who reviewed the newspaper's results said even those lower levels are troubling, because people exposed to them could face an increased risk of cancer. Vince says setting up long-term monitoring stations at every school would prove too costly. The state spent about $50,000 on the recent tests, he says. Miller also says he's "sure there was a fiscal aspect" to the short monitoring schedule. Pennsylvania intends to continue monitoring in Midland, where USA TODAY found elevated levels of chromium, as well as at two more schools in Erie and four other sites, Miller adds. Some activists question whether state regulators have any incentive to look for air quality problems, let alone find them. "They started out to prove that they didn't have a problem," activist Orr says of Louisiana officials. "Taking a single sample at a school can't be used to say things are safe 365 days a year. I don't see how they can even take the data and conclude things are safe." That's also the fear of some environmental experts. "The states have what I think is a very obvious conflict of interest," says Al Armendariz, an environmental engineering professor who reviewed the Louisiana and Pennsylvania findings. Armendariz, a professor at Southern Methodist University in Dallas, says state regulators "issue the permits for the facilities ... For them to turn around now and find that there's a public health impact, that would be embarrassing."