Toxic schools

Saturday, Jan. 10, 2009 | 2:07 a.m.

When administrators set out to build a new school, they look at any number of things, from the neighborhood to traffic controls. What they often don’t take into consideration, though, is air quality.

That could be a major mistake. USA Today spent months investigating industrial pollution and its effect on schools. The newspaper combed through documents from the Environmental Protection Agency and used a government computer simulation to determine potential problems.

The newspaper found some surprising results. Three years ago an elementary school in Ohio was shut down after it was discovered that the level of carcinogens in the air was 50 times the state-allowed level. USA Today found that 435 schools across the nation were in locations that could be worse than the air quality at the Ohio school, and at least 10 percent of those schools opened in the past decade.

Thankfully, none of those schools is in Nevada, but the newspaper’s examination shows some potential concerns here because of some schools’ proximity to industrial plants, such as several schools near the Black Mountain Industrial Center at Interstate 215 and U.S. 95.

Experts say it is clear young children are particularly susceptible to pollution, and sending a child to a school near an industrial polluter could be hazardous to the child’s health.

Herbert Needleman, professor of pediatrics at the University of Pittsburgh and one of the nation’s foremost experts on lead, told USA Today that much of the scientific evidence shows toxic chemicals to be harmful at levels lower than what is considered safe.

“The only authentic response is prevention. Stop exposure before it happens,” Needleman says. “The payoffs would be enormous. I don’t think we know how smart our kids could be.”

Twenty-three states, including Nevada, have no laws about siting schools near pollution-producing facilities. That is wrong. State officials and school administrators should add pollution to the list of considerations. After all, what kind of education can a child get if he’s literally sick from school?