EPA to retest air at two schools

Staff report

WARREN

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency says a special three-month monitoring of air quality at two schools — Life Skills of Trumbull County on Franklin Street Southeast and Academy of Arts and Sciences on Elm Road — showed that only low levels of certain dangerous chemicals were present.

The air is about to be retested for three more months, however, the EPA said, because a company the EPA believes is contributing to those emissions was not operating during the testing period in late 2009.

Jaime Wagner, environmental scientist with the EPA in Chicago, said she didn’t have the name of the company, but EPA data indicated the company had resumed operations in spring 2010 and that it is a coke oven and steel mill.

The EPA picked the two schools because they were ranked among the top 25 out of 127,809 schools in the nation in a 2009 USA Today article because of manganese emissions from a nearby steel mill as measured in 2005, the EPA said.

The article listed the following as the most prevalent risks: manganese, chlorine, lead and lead compounds, chromium and chromium compounds, nickel and nickel compounds.

It listed the following industries as being “most responsible” for the emissions: WCI Steel (now known as Severstal) on Pine Avenue Southeast, Re-Gen on Pine Avenue Southeast, General Electric Ohio Lamp Plant on North Park Avenue Northeast, Novelis Corp. on Griswold Street Northeast and Thomas Steel Strip Corp. on Delaware Avenue Northwest.

The schools also were chosen because of a 2002 EPA toxics assessment that indicated the potential for elevated concentrations of manganese, benzene, arsenic, lead and benzo(a)pyrene in air outside the schools that was coming from several facilities in the area, the EPA said.

Other Warren-area schools also were ranked high on the USA Today list.

The results of the study are available at the website www.epa.gov/schoolair.

The testing, done from Aug. 17 to Nov. 27, 2009, indicated that levels of manganese, arsenic, lead, benzene, benzo(a)pyrene and other air toxins were low at the two schools, the EPA said.

The EPA’s Schools Air Toxins Monitoring Initiative, which monitored outdoor air at 63 schools in 22 states, is designed to help EPA and state environmental agencies understand whether long-term exposure to air toxins poses health concerns for children and staff at the schools.

The following are summaries provided by the EPA of the various pollutants being monitored:

Manganese: Inhalation may affect the nervous system if people are exposed to high levels.

Benzene: Inhalation of benzene at high levels can affect the bone marrow and can cause anemia and leukemia.

Benzo(a)pyrene: Inhalation of benzo(a) pyrene can cause cancer if people are exposed to high levels.

Arsenic: Inhalation of arsenic at high levels can damage the respiratory system and cause lung cancer.

Lead: Inhalation and ingestion may affect the developing nervous system if people are exposed to high levels.