Native American, Black and Latino children are 124%, 86% and 43% respectively more likely than their white peers to be educated in classrooms near hazardous sites, according to a newly-released .

Through an analysis of over 75,000 pollution sites aggregated with recent enrollment data from public and private schools, researchers said they were able to paint a nationwide picture of the “scale and scope of students’ potential exposure to pollution and toxins from hazardous sites in the United States.” 

The report found over 10,000 pre-K through 12 schools are located within a quarter mile, or what’s equivalent to the distance of one lap around a high school track, from a superfund site, brownfield or a Toxic Release Inventory facility. 

About 8% of American schools, with over 3.3 million students and half million educators, are in school buildings within a quarter mile of an inactive or active chemical site, the report found. Expanded to a mile-radius, the number skyrocketed to 44% of schools near hazardous sites that are linked with higher rates of health issues such as childhood brain cancer, , asthma and .

“It’s important to remember that students are in school for over 1,230 hours on average [annually], but that just counts the time that they’re in class and eating lunch,” said Matthew Kraft, professor of education and economics at Brown and one of the lead authors of the report. “We know that kids often go to school early or stay late for before school and after care programs.”

Schools, Kraft continued, are “a critical but often overlooked source of potential exposure to these environmental toxins, which really [raises] a question of educational opportunity and educational equity.”

Across the United States, the report found 12.7% of urban schools are located within a quarter mile of a hazardous site, compared to 6% of suburban and 5% of rural schools. 

Data showed private schools were equally as likely to be located near hazardous sites as public schools, which “speaks to the universal nature of this challenge and the way that it will affect all students and families,” Kraft said.

But the disproportionality among children of color exposed to and attending schools within a quarter mile of contaminated sites compared to white children was largest within public school systems, increasing to 135% for Native American children, 92% for Black children and 49% for Latino children.

Most high-need student groups were also more likely to attend schools within a quarter mile of a hazard site, increasing the likelihood by 40% for low-income children and 21% for English language learners. The study said it did not find a “sizable difference for students with disabilities.”

Students of color, English language learners and low-income children were also more likely to attend schools closer to multiple hazardous sites, which “points to another dimension of inequity that affects students’ health and their academic success,” Kraft said, adding the health risks associated with these areas often “spills over into more frequent school absences that .”

The Northeast and Midwest had the highest percentages of schools located within a quarter mile of an environmental hazard site, 11.6% and 10.2% respectively, but it varied by state significantly. For example, researchers reported 3.1% of schools in Texas are a few minutes walking distance from a hazard site compared to 26.3% in Rhode Island.

“The level of risk is going to vary dramatically based on the characteristics of each environmental hazard site, but at least this shines the light on the enormous scale of potential harm students experience while they’re on school grounds,” Kraft said. “At a minimum, we should elevate the question about students’ exposure to these hazards as a major topic of education policy.”

The authors of the report called their findings “conservative,” explaining the analysis only accounted for 40,000 brownfields, about 10% of the estimated number of sites nationwide. They also said the report did not encompass other “major pollution sources,” including , lead plumbing in school buildings or natural disasters and the impact those can have on students. 

“Mounting evidence suggests that these are having outsized impacts on schools operations, budgets and ultimately, whether or not schools can keep their doors open and students can benefit from in person learning,” Kraft said. 

A focus on industrial pollution gives a “starting point,” Kraft added, that allows policy makers and advocates to better make decisions on how to respond to growing environmental needs affecting the classroom. 

There are no federal or consistent state guidelines that regulate safe distances for school building planning from environmental hazards, according to a .

President Donald Trump and his administration have called it the “Great American Comeback.” But environmental advocates say the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s reversing course on enforcing air and water pollution laws is more of a throwback — one that will exacerbate health risks for children who live and study in the shadows of petrochemical facilities. 

The  has found that children face special risks from air pollution because their airways are smaller and still developing and because they breathe more rapidly and inhale more air relative to their size than do adults.

Environmental lawyers say Trump and EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin’s slashing of federal protections against toxic emissions could lead to increased exposure to dangerous pollutants for kids living in fenceline communities.

Community advocates like Kaitlyn Joshua, who was born and raised in the southeast corridor of Louisiana dubbed “Cancer Alley,” say they are horrified about what EPA’s deregulation push will mean for the future generation.  

“That is not an exaggeration; we feel like we are suffocating without the cover and the oversight of the EPA,” Joshua said. “Without that, what can we really do? How can we really save ourselves? How can we really save our communities?” 

Ashley Gaignard knows how hard it is to keep kids safe when pollution is all around. 

When Gaignard’s son was in elementary school, a doctor restricted him from daily recess, saying the emissions from an ammonia facility located within 2 miles of his playground could be exacerbating a pre-existing lung condition, triggering severe asthma attacks. 

“I had asthma as a kid growing up, and my grandfather had asthma, so I just figured it was hereditary; he was going to suffer with asthma,” said Gaignard, who was born and raised in Louisiana’s Ascension Parish, also located within Cancer Alley. She’s now chief executive officer of the community advocacy group she created, . 

“I just never knew until the doctor said, ‘OK, we have to think about what he is breathing, and what’s causing him to flare up the minute he’s outside’,” she said. 

Gaignard said the further her son got away from that school, as he moved through the parish’s educational system, the less severe his attacks were. She said he’s now an adult living in Fresno, California — and no longer suffers from asthma.

New EPA head announces rollbacks

Zeldin sent shockwaves throughout the environmental justice sector on March 12 when he  that the EPA was rolling back many of the federal regulations that were put in place under the administration of Joe Biden — many built around environmental justice and mitigating climate change. 

Those included  the Clean Air Act by implementing more stringent controls on toxic air emissions and increased air quality monitoring in communities near industrial facilities. The new standards were expected to reduce 6,000 tons of air toxins annually and reduce the emissions related to cancer risks in communities in Texas, Louisiana, Delaware, New Jersey, the Ohio River Valley and elsewhere. 

A new  from the Office of Enforcement and Compliance Assurance, which serves as the law enforcement arm of the EPA — circulated the same day as Zeldin’s announcement — states that environmental justice considerations would no longer factor into the federal agency’s oversight of facilities in Black and brown communities. 

Zeldin said the goal was “driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion.”

That means the EPA will no longer target, investigate or address noncompliance issues at facilities emitting cancer-causing chemicals such as benzene, ethylene oxide and formaldehyde in the places already overburdened with hazardous pollution. 

“While enforcement and compliance assurance can continue to focus on areas with the highest levels of (hazardous air pollutants) affecting human health,” the memo reads, “…to ensure consistency with the President’s Executive Orders, they will no longer focus exclusively on communities selected by the regions as being ‘already highly burdened with pollution impacts.’”

The agency also will not implement any enforcement and compliance actions that could shut down energy production or power generation “absent an imminent and substantial threat to human health.” 

In its prepared  about the EPA’s deregulation measures, Zeldin said, “The agency is committed to fulfilling President Trump’s promise to unleash American energy, lower cost of living for Americans, revitalize the American auto industry, restore the rule of law, and give power back to states to make their own decisions. ”

Pollution ‘right in our backyards’

Top officials with the nonprofit environmental advocacy group Earthjustice recently said there is no way for the Trump administration to reconcile what it’s calling “the greatest day of deregulation” in EPA’s history with protecting public health. 

Patrice Simms, vice president of litigation for healthy communities for Earthjustice, went a step further pointing out during a press briefing that the reason EPA exists is to protect the public from toxic air pollution. 

“The law demands that EPA control these pollutants, and demands that EPA protect families and communities,” Simms said. “And these impacts on these communities most heavily land on the shoulders of children. Children are more susceptible to the harms from pollutants, and these pollutants are often happening right in the backyards of our schools, of our neighborhoods and our playgrounds.”

A 2016  published by the Center for Effective Government found that nearly one in 10 children in the country attends one of the 12,000 schools located within 1 mile of a chemical facility. These children are disproportionately children of color living in low-income areas, the report found. 

For the past several years, Joshua has been leading the opposition to a hydrogen and ammonia facility being built within 2,000 feet of an elementary school in Ascension Parish. Air Products plans to start commercial operation in 2028 where an estimated 600,000 metric tons of hydrogen will be produced annually from methane gas.

The $7 billion project has been touted as a clean energy solution because the company plans to collect its carbon dioxide emissions and transport them through pipelines to be stored under a recreational lake 37 miles away. 

Carbon capture technology has been , with skeptics highlighting the possibilities for earthquakes, groundwater contamination and CO2 leaking back into the atmosphere through abandoned and unplugged oil and gas wells or pipeline breaches. Pipeline ruptures in the past have also led to communities having to evacuate their homes. 

Environmental justice is new ‘civil rights movement’

Joshua said these communities need more federal regulation and oversight — not less.

“We had a community meeting … for our Ascension Parish residents, and the sentiment and the theme on that call was very much like ‘Kaitlyn, there is nothing we can do.’ Like, we just had to literally lie down and take this,” Joshua said. “We had to kind of challenge people and put them in the space, in time, of a civil rights movement. We have to get creative about how we’re going to organize around it and be our own version of EPA.”

Sarah Vogel, senior vice president of healthy communities with the Environmental Defense Fund, said the move toward deregulation comes as the U.S. Department of Justice announced on  that it was dropping the federal lawsuit the Biden administration lodged against Denka’s Performance Elastomer plant in Louisiana. That plant had been accused of worsening cancer risks for the residents in the surrounding majority-Black community. 

The DOJ said its decision was tied to Trump’s moves to ‘”end radical DEI programs” — federal programs tied to diversity, equity and inclusion.

“What they’re trying to do is just completely deregulate everything for oil and gas and petrochemical facilities, just absolutely take the lid off,” Vogel said. “We have long known that children are uniquely susceptible to air pollution and toxic chemicals. Like they’re huge, huge impacts. It’s why what they are doing is so devastating and cruel in my mind.”

This was originally published on . ��is a nonprofit newsroom that investigates the powers stalling climate action.

Each weekday, more than half of the K-12 students in the U.S. – – ride a school bus. Until very recently, nearly all of these ran on diesel fuel.

Nationwide, diesel-powered school buses produce of carbon dioxide emissions. They also generate that are harmful to children’s health – especially . Studies show that exposure to diesel tailpipe emissions and can lead to increased hospital admissions and emergency room visits.

Shifting to cleaner buses is especially important for low-income students. Across the U.S., ride the school bus, compared with 45% of other students. School buses often while they are loading or unloading, which exposes children directly to exhaust fumes.

I study issues at the intersection of , including sustainability and equity in transportation. While electrifying school bus fleets requires big investments, I believe the evidence makes clear that it will more than pay off over the long term in health and economic benefits, and I am encouraged to see public and private investments moving in that direction.

Early movers

Decisions about switching from diesel to electric school buses typically lie with cities and school districts, although state governments are getting involved. As of , 415 school districts or contracted fleet operators had committed to deploy 12,275 electric school buses in a wide range of settings, from large cities to rural counties, across 38 states and lands of two Native American tribes.

California, a in clean vehicle policy, acquired its first electric school buses in 2014. Now the state is spending nearly US$70 million to to advance its climate and air-quality goals.

Another notable case is Montgomery County, the largest school district in Maryland, which is and building five charging depots. The district serves a diverse population of .

In Virginia, the utility company Dominion Energy that it would provide 50 electric buses for 16 school districts across the state as one of its initiatives to reduce pollution and promote sustainability. Dominion is paying for infrastructure costs and absorbing the cost difference between a diesel and an electric bus.

The biggest obstacles: Funding and space

As Dominion’s gesture suggests, converting bus fleets isn’t an easy step for many school districts. An electric school bus , of a diesel bus.

But electric buses have , so they save districts an estimated $4,000 to $11,000 per bus per year compared with diesel versions. That can make the costs of electric buses comparable over their lifetimes.

Electric bus motors have about 20 parts, compared with 2,000 in a diesel engine, and require far fewer maintenance steps such as regular fluid changes. And because many of their mechanical systems, such as braking and steering, are similar to those in diesel buses, electric buses are relatively easy to service, especially in districts where both bus types operate.

Charging stations also require money and space, especially in areas where bus routes are long and battery range is a constraint. Most buses now on the market have ranges of about to (160-190 kilometers) on a single charge.

In a 2013 study, analysts at the National Renewable Energy Laboratory reviewed school bus drive cycles in Colorado, New York and Washington and found that the average school bus was typically in operation for . Driving distance averaged about 32 miles, (50 kilometers), with some buses traveling over 127 miles (200 kilomaters) daily.

School districts need places to charge buses easily and efficiently, especially between morning and afternoon routes. Building this infrastructure, especially as diesel buses continue to operate concurrently with growing electric fleets, can pose a challenge in school districts where .

Buses as power sources

At the same time, charging infrastructure can make school bus fueling and management more efficient. Today’s allows districts to plug in a bus whenever it is parked at the depot but have the bus charge only when needed. Chargers can be programmed to function at times of day when energy demand is lowest and power is less expensive.

Manufacturers are introducing buses equipped with that can send stored electricity back to the grid when they are not in service. During summer months, when many school buses are not in use and power usage often peaks, utilities soon may be able to call on school districts to make charged buses available to help ease demand load. These buses can also during power outages and emergencies.

In a 2022 study, researchers at the University of North Carolina analyzed how the state’s utilities could use school buses with vehicle-to-grid charging to manage peak power demand while taking the buses’ schedules into account. They estimated that a fleet of 14,000 buses could on an average winter weekend day in North Carolina, reducing utilities’ dependence on natural gas and avoiding up to 1,130 tons of carbon dioxide emissions per day.

Cleaner air is likely to pay off in improved student performance. In a , researchers found that 2,656 diesel buses in Georgia – adding new components to reduce the buses’ emissions – was associated with positive effects on students’ respiratory health, and that districts with retrofitted diesel buses experienced test score gains in English and math. Since even modernized diesel vehicles still generate air pollutants, shifting to electric buses would likely produce even larger increases.

Spreading the benefits

Federal and state agencies are moving to speed up the transition to electric school buses. The American Rescue Plan, enacted in 2021 to provide economic relief during the COVID-19 pandemic, included for school districts in underserved communities, Tribal schools and private fleets serving schools that purchase electric buses.

In March 2022 the Environmental Protection Agency for 23 electric school bus replacement programs and associated charging infrastructure in 11 states. And New York state’s includes a nation-leading requirement that all new school bus purchases must be electric starting in July 2027, and that all school buses in service must be zero-emission by 2035. The budget allocates $500 million in potential state funding for school bus electrification as part of a larger environmental bond act, which will be on the ballot in November 2022.

Riding the iconic yellow school bus is a formative experience for millions of kids across the U.S. If more districts make the shift away from diesel, I believe it will become a greener and healthier trip and a step toward the zero-emissions future our nation’s children deserve.

This article is republished from under a Creative Commons license. Read the .