HAFB - METHANE PRESS

Study Warns of More Toxic Risks at Schools 
Buildings constructed near contamination

Jim Doyle, Chronicle Staff Writer 	 	Tuesday, March 20, 2001 
 
Children are increasingly being placed at risk from chemical contamination in their schools, according to a national study released yesterday. 

More schools need to be built for the nation's growing number of students. But as urban land prices rise and developers turn to former commercial and industrial sites, more schools and day care centers in U.S. metropolitan areas are being built on poisoned land. 

"School districts pressed to save money are often enticed by donations of unknowingly contaminated property, seek out the cheapest land, or hire uncertified or poor-quality contractors for environmental assessment; all at great risk to children," the study concludes. 

The study, "Poisoned Schools," was sponsored by the Center for Health, Environment and Justice in Falls Church, Va. Some of the funding for the study came from the Rockefeller Family Fund and several other foundations. 

The report cites several examples of California schools located on contaminated land, including the Belmont Learning Complex in Los Angeles. The half-built high school, located on a former oil field and industrial site, was abandoned last year after parents learned what school officials already knew: the site had explosive methane gas, deadly hydrogen sulfide, benzene and other toxics. 

In Watsonville, school officials plan to build a high school on industrial and agricultural land near a toxic dump and an airport. The parcel and adjacent fields is sprayed regularly with methyl bromide, a toxic pesticide that attacks the nervous system. 

Contaminated school sites are most common in poor communities, but affluent areas are not immune, the study says. 

In Marin County, a group of parents is challenging the planned relocation of the Novato Charter School to a seven-acre parcel on the old Hamilton Air Force Base. 

This dispute, not mentioned in the new study, involves a proposed school site that is one-quarter mile from an old Army dump where methane gas is leaking and toxic chemicals such as lead, PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls), benzene, pesticides and dioxins, have been found. The landfill was capped in 1995. 

The school site is also located next to a toxic plume of MTBE, or methyl tertiary butyl ether, which leaked from a Navy gas station across the street. 

The Navy is donating the land to the Novato Unified School District, which plans to let the charter school build a new campus there for 220 children, grades K-8. An environmental consulting firm, hired by the school district, concluded that any health risks at the new site would be minimal. 

"We're about protecting children's health, not defining how much chemical poisons their small, growing bodies can handle," said Renee Kenney, a school parent who founded a group opposed to the charter school's plan. "We've got to put the kids before the school, and not the school before the kids." 

Numerous grassroots environmental groups contributed data to the 92-page report, which also examines the link between children's disease and their exposure to toxics, including pesticides used on school grounds. 

"National environmental health research reveals increasing numbers of children afflicted with asthma, cancers, lower IQs, and learning disabilities that impede their ability to develop their full potential," the study says. "Extensive scientific evidence documents the role pesticides play in this epidemic." 

Regulations for toxic chemicals are geared toward adult tolerances, not children's bodies. Only a few laws are specifically designed to protect children -- for example, standards for asbestos in schools and lead in wall paint. 

"Calculating risks based on health effects found in adults weighing 160 pounds, exposed for a lifetime (70 years), and behaving like adults is totally inappropriate for children," the study says.