Reader Randy pointed me in the direction to some rather disturbing news regarding pollution levels at our local schools. USA Today released a special report called the Smokestack Effect, which "used an EPA model to track the path of industrial pollution and mapped the locations of almost 128,000 schools to determine the levels of toxic chemicals outside."
Sadly, most of the schools in Phoenixville scored very poorly. Below are the results, click the link to see the full details:
Phoenixville Area Kindergarten Center - 1st Percentile (only 149 of 127,800 schools have worse air)
Barkley Elementary School - 3rd Percentile (only 2,037 of 127,800 schools have worse air)
Phoenixville Area High School - 8th Percentile (only 9,497 of 127,800 schools have worse air)
Phoenixville Area Middle School - 8th Percentile (only 9,497 of 127,800 schools have worse air)
Schuylkill Elementary School - 8th Percentile (only 9,497 of 127,800 schools have worse air)
The methodology used for the study can be viewed here.
Its important to note that these results are based on modeled data using information provided to the EPA by industrial and government facilities. Having said that, since all schools were subject to the same methodology, it stands to reason that the results are pretty accurate.
Randy is trying to contact the Chester County Health Department to see if they have done any air quality studies recently to see if things are as bad as this study indicates. I will post any updates that he sends along.
UPDATE: Interim Superintendent of Schools Terry Mancini has posted a PDF on the school district's website addressing the report. Click here to view the PDF.
UPDATE 12/11: Here are the websites for both Senator Dinniman and Representative-Elect Drucker. Both have contact forms on which you can submit a message requesting that they look into the potential issue we are facing.
Senator Dinniman: www.senatordinniman.com
Rep-elect Drucker: www.votepauldrucker.com
UPDATE 12/11 4:45pm: It has been suggested that concerned parties also get in touch with House Members Sestak and Gerlach. Their websites, along with contact info, can be found at:
Representative Sestak: sestak.house.gov
Representative Gerlach: gerlach.house.gov
Sadly, most of the schools in Phoenixville scored very poorly. Below are the results, click the link to see the full details:
Phoenixville Area Kindergarten Center - 1st Percentile (only 149 of 127,800 schools have worse air)
Barkley Elementary School - 3rd Percentile (only 2,037 of 127,800 schools have worse air)
Phoenixville Area High School - 8th Percentile (only 9,497 of 127,800 schools have worse air)
Phoenixville Area Middle School - 8th Percentile (only 9,497 of 127,800 schools have worse air)
Schuylkill Elementary School - 8th Percentile (only 9,497 of 127,800 schools have worse air)
The methodology used for the study can be viewed here.
Its important to note that these results are based on modeled data using information provided to the EPA by industrial and government facilities. Having said that, since all schools were subject to the same methodology, it stands to reason that the results are pretty accurate.
Randy is trying to contact the Chester County Health Department to see if they have done any air quality studies recently to see if things are as bad as this study indicates. I will post any updates that he sends along.
UPDATE: Interim Superintendent of Schools Terry Mancini has posted a PDF on the school district's website addressing the report. Click here to view the PDF.
UPDATE 12/11: Here are the websites for both Senator Dinniman and Representative-Elect Drucker. Both have contact forms on which you can submit a message requesting that they look into the potential issue we are facing.
Senator Dinniman: www.senatordinniman.com
Rep-elect Drucker: www.votepauldrucker.com
UPDATE 12/11 4:45pm: It has been suggested that concerned parties also get in touch with House Members Sestak and Gerlach. Their websites, along with contact info, can be found at:
Representative Sestak: sestak.house.gov
Representative Gerlach: gerlach.house.gov
Comments
Should this report, if the methods of study are found to be good, be to any one's surprise? This is the same school district that seriously looked into building an elementary school on a Superfund site.
Schools
All of the schools that fared the worst are in relatively close proximity to Temtco Steel. For some reason, the #'s they have reported to the EPA set off alarm bells in this study. Its clear that as the schools get further away from their plant, the #'s improve pretty quickly.
The question becomes whether Temtco is indeed polluting the area to the extent that the models in this study suggest or not. Either way, I hope that it is sufficient to get the Health Department or EPA to to do an air quality study to see if our kids are in as much danger as this study seems to indicate they may be.
Comments should also be sent to our new State Rep (Drucker) and State Senator (Dinniman) as state monitoring would probably be a good idea also.
Good news - Outdated data may have been used in the models. Since no air sampling has been conducted we don't if there is a problem.
Bad news - There has been no air sampling conducted so we don't know if there is a problem.
Hopefully the DEP, county, district, or someone will begin the air sampling ASAP.