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EPA New England Administrator Announces Children First Campaign -- Campaign Begins With Safe Schools Initiative Featuring Showcase School in Boston

Release Date: 09/11/2000
Contact Information: Amy Miller, EPA Press Office (617-918-1042)


BOSTON – The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's New England Office today launched a $1 million, three-point "Children First" initiative aimed at protecting children from environmental health threats in the places where they spend most of their time - in school, at home, and outdoors.

The plan, announced at a news conference at the Blackstone Elementary School in Boston's South End, includes $500,000 of new investments to combat lead poisoning in New England cities, $200,000 to improve air quality and reduce toxic exposure at 200 schools, and $225,000 in programs to curb skyrocketing asthma rates.

EPA also announced the availability of $100,000 in grants to broaden opportunities for environmental education in classrooms around New England and a new "Showcase Schools" initiative in which one school in each of the New England states will be selected to showcase numerous EPA programs available to make schools safer for children.

"At a time of unparalleled prosperity all across the country, it is unacceptable that there are still thousands of children in New England afflicted by lead poisoning, mercury poisoning and bouts with asthma," said Mindy S. Lubber, regional administrator at EPA's New England Office, who will be holding events in the other five New England states later this fall to announce the initiative.

Lubber pledged that EPA New England - through a newly formed Children's Health Team comprised of a dozen EPA staff members - will use all the tools in its arsenal to reduce environmental risks that are causing elevated rates of asthma, lead poisoning and other diseases suffered by children.

"Pollution is unhealthy for everyone, but it is particularly threatening to children whose bodies are small and growing," said Lubber, a mother of two small children. "Our society cannot stand still when a dozen kids in Massachusetts are being diagnosed with lead poisoning each and every week and our hospital emergency rooms are being flooded with small children suffering from asthma."

Today's news conference included a half-dozen of the state's top public health leaders - among those, Dr. Barry Zuckerman, chief of pediatrics at the Boston Medical Center; Suzanne Condon, assistant commissioner at the Massachusetts Department of Public Health; Lauren Liss, commissioner at the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection; and Patricia Hynes, environmental health professor at the Boston University School of Public Health.

"Environmental health threats are a major problem for children and it's all too obvious when you work every day at the Boston Medical Center," said Dr. Barry Zuckerman, chief of pediatrics at the Boston Medical Center. "Vaccines and checkups won't protect children from environmental health threats. The environment needs to be safe for children and others."

"Children's health and safety are among our top priorities, particularly as they relate to reducing environmental hazards and the escalating rates of pediatric asthma," added Dr. Howard Koh, commissioner of the Massachusetts Department of Public Health.

Lubber kicked off the campaign during the first month of the school year by announcing the first prong of the Children First campaign -- a Safe Schools Initiative that will focus on making sure all elementary schools and high schools in New England have the safest yards, classrooms and laboratories possible. The school initiative includes the following:

Safe Schools

• Tools for Schools: New England's school buildings suffer from a variety of environmental problems, including poor maintenance and inappropriate products, that make our children ill. One-third of Massachusetts schools reported unacceptable indoor air quality in a 1995 government study. Tools for Schools is already being implemented in 150 New England schools, including five in Boston and 60 in Massachusetts. In the coming months, EPA New England will enlist an additional 200 schools and train 1,000 more school officials to undertake the Tools for Schools program

• Showcase Schools: One school in each New England state will be offered access to a broad spectrum of EPA programs to ensure clean indoor air, healthier building construction, safer use and storage of chemicals and a study body educated about their environment. The Blackstone School, host for today's event, has been chosen to be the Showcase School for Massachusetts.

• Toxics-Free Schools: Schools use chemicals in classrooms, science laboratories and vocational shops as well as in facility maintenance. Toxic chemicals such as mercury are also prevalent in medical equipment, lighting and electrical devices found in schools. A newly formed team of EPA experts will hold workshops and visit high schools and vocational schools to educate teachers and administrators on safer use, storage and disposal of chemicals and equipment.

Healthy Homes

• Lead Safe Yards: New England's children are particularly at risk for lead poisoning because the region's older wooden houses often contain lead paint and lead-contaminated yards. In Massachusetts alone, nearly 3,000 kids were diagnosed with lead poisoning in the last five years, including more than 850 in Boston alone. EPA New England's successful Lead Safe Yards project has already tested and cleaned 50 Dorchester backyards that were contaminated with lead, and another 54 yards will be made safe in the Roxbury/Dorchester area in the coming months. The Lead Safe Yards project was recently selected as a model for other communities across the nation, beginning with a focus on New England cities, which have been invited to a training seminar Oct. 2 in Boston to set up similar programs.

• Lead Enforcement: EPA New England's enforcement program is making lead paint a priority by creating a team to enforce laws requiring that landlords inform tenants of the presence of lead paint.

• Asthma Reduction: In Massachusetts 400,000 people (6.5 percent of the population) have asthma, and rates for children are even higher. In some Boston neighborhoods and housing projects, asthma rates are 25 percent and higher. The rate of asthma attacks nationally among children has doubled in the last decade, becoming the leading cause of hospitalization of children. EPA New England is funding a program at Boston University and half a dozen other area organizations to teach families at home and in health centers how to reduce the risks of asthma attacks. EPA New England also held an Asthma Summit this spring that for the first time drew together federal and state agencies along with private health groups and asthma coalitions to address this issue. The group established an initiative to track asthma rates in children and to promote new building guidelines for healthier indoor spaces.

• Mercury: An estimated one in four children nationally are exposed to mercury at unsafe levels. Mercury exposure may lead to irreversible neurological effects. Across New England, more than 80 percent of the inland waters have fish too polluted with mercury to eat. EPA New England's Partners for Change Mercury Challenge program is working with the region's hospitals to reduce mercury waste entirely by the year 2003. Thirteen New England hospitals have joined the program, resulting in the elimination of more than 600 pounds of mercury from their waste streams. This month EPA New England will send letters to all 276 medical facilities in New England, encouraging them to participate in the voluntary program. This year we expect to double and, possibly, triple, participation among hospitals. Recognizing that many children get mercury poisoning because their mothers did not know the risks of eating fish from regional waters, EPA New England is launching a program to teach parents the dangers of mercury and mercury poisoning.

• Air Quality Alerts: Air pollution causes lung and other respiratory diseases in children. Every summer, EPA New England gives reports on air quality to the public through the media and through electronic messages to 1,000 camps, daycare centers and individuals. Air monitors installed this year in Roxbury and Dorchester, where children suffer from high asthma, keep track of air quality on a 24-hour basis and send data to a public web site. Students from a nearby high school raise colored flags to alert people to the air quality.

For more information on children's health issues and EPA-NE's Children First campaign, visit EPA's web site at www.epa.gov/region1/children