Environmental Child Abuse
by Jane Dale Owen
Reports of child mistreatment kidnapping, battery, undernourishment, molestation and other abhorrent child victimizing misdeeds are frequently brought to our attention by the news media. Most of us quite naturally react with concern, compassion, and a clamor for authorities to impose corrective justice. The offenders get labeled as criminals.
Yet youngsters are victims of a woefully under scrutinized form of life-imperiling abuse that occurs routinely and is rarely reported. If the news media were as alert and primed to draw the public’s attention to the frequency and harmfulness of toxicity that air pollution inflicts on children daily as they are to headlining the more lurid forms of physical, mental and emotional child abuse, undoubtedly there would be a corresponding eruption of public concern, and even outrage directed at a class of offenders who currently attract very little scorn.
These assaults on the nostrils, lungs and sensitive systems of our children are ongoing. Thousands of Houston area children are regularly breathing in these toxic chemical contaminants at the schools they attend, adjacent to refineries that represent themselves as Good Neighbors.
Harris County Leads in Pollution
– A Is For Air Pollution Part II,” a landmark study by the Refinery Reform Campaign, reports that in Harris County alone, there are 96 at-risk schools in proximity to 55 refineries and chemical plants, in an arena of toxicity that consists of 17,221,258 pounds of combined toxic pollution exposure produced each year. This is more than any of the eight Texas Counties studied. The study included Ector, El Paso, Galveston, Gregg, Harris, Jefferson, Nueces and Orange. Even more alarmingly, almost two thirds of Texas schools, with a total of more than 142,000 children, are located within two miles of chemical plants and refineries.
Emissions from the offending plants variously contain chemicals known to inflict a wide range of adverse health effects including birth defects, learning disabilities, cancer, and even death. The emitted compounds commonly include benzene, styrene, ethylene, propylene, methanol, ammonia, toluene, xylene, vinyl acetate, hydrogen cyanide, sulfuric acid, ethylbenzene, formaldehyde and at least a dozen other known health impairing chemical agents.
It is certain that when children attend schools in proximity to petrochemical plants they are put at risk by being exposed to all the excess pollutants that drift from those facilities to nearby neighborhoods.
At Chavez, – Nothing Would Save You”
One case that has generated quite a stir is the Ch‡vez High School controversy that has long swirled around the location that was originally selected for construction of the school. Ch‡vez is located less than a quarter mile from four major industrial chemical facilities (Texas Petroleum, Denka Chemical, USS chemical, and Goodyear Chemical) that emit nearly five thousand pounds of toxic pollution annually. In the event of an explosion, – nothing would save you,” says Juan Parras, outreach coordinator for the Environmental Justice Clinic at Texas Southern University. Parras notes that proximity such as this evokes considerable apprehension about the health and safety of school children.
Hazardous exposure of this kind may seem remote to the multitude of residents whose dwellings and places of work and recreation do not reveal views of chemical refineries billowing toxic pollutants into the air. Often the most toxic of emissions have no odor or color. However, the reality is that air pollution from these industries affects citizens throughout our area. But those among us who are the most particularly sensitive to environmental hazards are our young, school age children. The ESLs (effects screening levels) are grossly underestimated even for adults, let alone children. ESL’s are used by the Texas Commission on Environmental Quality to evaluate the potential for effects to occur as a result of exposure to concentrations in the air.
Children’s outdoor activities are a serious concern because exercise results in an increased rate of breathing. Children spend three times as much time outdoors as adults do. Numerous studies have shown that children are more sensitive to pollution than adults. Their biological defense mechanisms and lungs are still developing, and pollution tends to settle lower to the ground at the level where children breathe.
– In Harm’s Way: The Toxic Threat to Child Development,” a report released by the Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility in April of 2000, found that more than half (53 percent) of all toxic chemical emissions reported to the federal Toxic Release Inventory are known or suspected as developmental and neurological toxins. The report states that there is an epidemic of behavioral, developmental and learning disabilities that has become evident in children. The report also claims that Louisiana and Texas lead the nation as the top two emitters of these toxins. According to the report, a growing number of scientists believe that these developmental and neurological toxins could be partly responsible for the increased incidence of a range of physical and mental complaints in children. The report also states that the number of children in special education programs classified with learning disabilities increased 191 percent from 1977 to 1994.
Proximity Raises Risk
According to researchers at the University of Birmingham Medical School, children born near sources of air pollution were at increased risk for serious illness and death. In fact, these children are estimated to be 20 percent more likely to die of leukemia and solid tumor (non-blood) cancers. This evidence confirms what environmental health experts have been fearing: that children in industrialized communities in Texas are at higher risk than the general population.
In a report by Scorecard, a project by the Environmental Defense Network, Houston ranks number one among all cities in:
- Childhood cancer
- Smokestack
- Major industries concentrated in a 50 mile stretch along the Houston Ship Channel (Port of Houston Authority)
- Number of citizens exposed to hazardous air pollution
- Cancer causing emissions from industrial point sources
- Total environmental releases
- Scorecard also states that in Harris County there are over three million people who face a cancer risk--more than 100 times the goal set by the Clean Air Act.
According to the American Lung Association – 500,500 citizens (approximately 15 percent of Houston’s population) are now affected by lung cancer, chronic bronchitis, childhood asthma, adult asthma and emphysema.”
Parents Should Insist on Protection
Many effects from toxic exposure may not be seen right away. Low level, long term exposure is considered to be the most dangerous. The result of outdoor exposure or long term exposure (exposure at low concentrations) may not be detectable for years. The problem lies in the fact that there are no immediate symptoms because at low ambient concentrations many chemicals cannot be detected by odor. This may result in cellular damage or it may disrupt cellular communication possibly taking years to become clinically detectable. These effects are considered to be irreversible and have the potential to be transferred to offspring. Consequences such as these should not be a part of a child’s education.
The study of chemicals and effects on child development is a relatively new field in public health science. Needless to say, all the answers have not been brought to light. The Baylor College of Medicine’s Environmental Health Section has organized a task force that is exploring the creation of a children’s environmental health center that will focus on clinical, outreach and research in the Texas Medical Center. By taking more regulatory steps to reduce and eliminate exposures to certain chemicals, we may be able to reduce the threat to children. At present the regulations that industry must abide by are failing to protect those who most need our concern. Schools need to be equipped with the knowledge and the resources to ensure child protection. Industry leaders need to be better stewards of their impact on the community, and discover the financial as well as environmental long range benefits that have been proven to result from – greener” production practices.
And parents should settle for nothing less than full protection of their children from harmful toxic exposures.
Children are our most precious natural resource.
To find out more:
what’s in your area
Baylor College of Medicine’s Chronic Disease Prevention and Control Research Center
Health Effects of Air Pollution Series
"A is for Air Pollution"
