Schools pressured to reduce students' toxic exposure
"Parents are justifiably concerned about protecting
their children from gun violence at schools, but they are unaware that toxic
chemicals kill," said Denise Lee of the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense
League in a March 21 press release announcing the launch of a statewide campaign
to protect the state's schoolchildren from exposure to toxic chemicals. The
routine use of pesticides and caustic cleaning agents in public schools has
raised concerns in recent weeks among parents of students in the Buncombe County
Schools.
BREDL released a new national report, "Poisoned
Schools: Invisible Threats, Visible Actions," published by the Center for
Health, Environment and Justice in Falls Church, Va. The report, which BREDL
sent to Buncombe County Board of Commissioners Chair Nathan Ramsey, recommends
that decisions about siting new schools should involve not just school officials
but also parents, students, teachers and community members. Citing health
experts' growing belief that soaring rates of childhood cancer and learning
disabilities such as attention-deficit disorder and autism are linked to
children's increasing exposure to environmental chemicals, the report points out
that new schools are frequently built atop or close to old landfills and
agricultural and factory sites, where land costs are relatively low, but the
risk of exposure to toxic chemicals is very high.
"Under no circumstances should a school be built on
top of a hazardous waste dump, garbage dump, or other landfilled property,"
states the report. "No source of contamination, such as a landfill or
containment facility, should be built or established within 1,000 feet of a
school. ... Industrial or other facilities releasing chemicals should never be
built or located within two miles of a school."
Within the school, "if pesticides are used, they
should be the least toxic available and their use strictly limited," the
report recommends, and parents and students should be notified in advance about
what kinds of pesticides will be used, the health effects of exposure, and
parents' right to request alternatives.
North Carolina law forbids aerial pesticide spraying within
a 300-foot buffer zone around schools, to protect against pesticide drift. But
it does not require posting or prior notification of pesticide application,
according to the report.
McDowell County resident Elizabeth O'Nan, the mother of a
chemically sensitive child, is the director of PACE (Protect All Children's
Environment). She discovered two years ago how hard it can sometimes be for
parents to find out just what pesticides and cleaning materials are being used
in their children's schools.
"I called the maintenance man - he couldn't even
pronounce the names of the chemicals he was using," she relates. The
chemicals turned out to include growth-hormone regulators.
"He refused to provide the MSD sheets, which are
required by law to be made available to anyone who asks," says O'Nan.
Material Safety Data sheets detail the contents and known health hazards of
toxic chemicals. Many common pesticides and herbicides, she has learned, contain
recycled hazardous wastes.
O'Nan only recently obtained the information she had
requested, and only after filing a request under the state's open-records laws.
Her daughter is now attending an alternative school.
["Poisoned Schools: Invisible Threats, Visible
Actions" is available in pdf format on the Blue Ridge Environmental Defense
League Web site www.bredl.org. PACE can be reached at pace@mcdowell.main.nc.us.]
©2001 Mountain Xpress
(Note
from Elizabeth: O'Nan: this article was misstated.... we still have not gotten
the information from the school even with our Open Records request.)
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