Reading, Writing and Risk

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Reading, Writing and Risk

Air Pollution Inside California's Portable Classrooms

Download Reading, Writing and Risk in Adobe Acrobat Format

Download Advisory on Relocatable (portable) and Renovated Classrooms from

the Department of Health Services, Indoor Air Quality Section.

Go to a report from the California Interagency Working Group on Indoor Air

Quality

Contact: Bill or Zev Ross, EWG, (415) 561-6698 or 561-6699

Kaplan, CalPIRG, (415) 292-1487

Dunne, Ofc. of Assm. , (916) 319-2373

Reading, Writing and Risk:

2 Million CA Kids Attend School in Portable Classrooms

Where Air Quality May Be Harmful to Health

SAN FRANCISCO -- More than 2 million California children attend school in

portable classrooms that may be a significant source of exposure to airborne

toxins, including formaldehyde and other cancer-causing chemicals, according

to a new report by Environmental Working Group.

The report - Reading, Writing and Risk: Air Pollution Inside California's

Portable Classrooms , available online at www.ewg.org -- says an estimated

86,500 portable classrooms are in use across the state as a result of

class-size reduction mandates. EWG's exhaustive review of scientific

literature shows that long-term exposure to airborne chemicals in

concentrations that have been measured in California portable classrooms may

increase a child's lifetime risk of cancer by two to three times the level

deemed acceptable under federal law. Short-term exposure to chemicals or

toxic molds commonly found in portables can cause nausea, headaches,

diarrhea and other health effects.

The report was released today at the State Capitol in Sacramento and at a

school in Los Angeles' San Valley where, earlier this month, a

number of students and teachers were made sick after attending class in a

portable - the latest in a string of incidents across the state. A

toxicologist who examined some of the children from the Saugus Union School

District reported that their blood contained elevated levels of formaldehyde

and other chemicals often found in manaufactured buildings.

Next week, the Assembly is expected to vote on the Healthy Schools Act (AB

1207), a bill by Assembly Majority Leader of San Francisco.

The bill would direct the state to study air quality in portable classrooms

and provide schools with training in how to make sure portables are properly

ventilated.

" We should not be sending our children to school in buildings that may make

them sick, " said Bill , California director of EWG. " Better

ventilation will improve the air quality in portable classrooms, but they

still emit airborne toxic chemicals that can harm students' and teachers'

health. The state should either provide schools with the money they need to

build permanent classrooms, or require that the makers of portable

classrooms reduce their use of toxic construction materials. "

Last year, the state Department of Health Services wrote a report - still

unreleased -- that warned of " endemic " air quality problems in portable

classrooms. Because the report was completed during the final months of Gov.

Pete 's tenure, the state held the report for the incoming

administration of Gov. Gray .

According to the EWG report, long-term exposure to formaldehyde or other

chemicals at levels measured in the Saugus school district poses two to

three times the one-in-one-million increased cancer risk allowed under the

U.S. Clean Air Act. Portables are also a favored habitat for toxic molds

that can cause nausea, breathing problems, nosebleeds, diarrhea, and in

extreme cases, death.

Although formaldehyde and other chemicals are emitted from almost all

construction materials, whether in portable or conventional buildings, the

report argues that schools are a unique indoor environment. Children are

known to be more susceptible to the effects of toxic chemicals, and the

tighter construction and ventilation problems of portables may allow the

buildup of air contaminants to harmful levels. Schools also typically house

four or five times as many occupants per square foot as office buildings.