March 6, 2000 (Berkeley, Calif.) -- With the coming of spring, children are
March 6, 2000 (Berkeley, Calif.) -- With the coming of spring, children are venturing outdoors again -- for soccer games, track and field events, and lunches on the schoolyard grass. But according to a trio of U.S. senators, those playing fields and lawns may not be good places for kids. Each year schools spray any number of different herbicides and pesticides on their grounds to control pests of all kinds, from yellow jackets to ants. But no one is paying enough attention to the harmful effects that such chemicals may have on the nation's schoolchildren, says Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., one of the concerned legislators.
Like public areas anywhere, classrooms and playgrounds are inviting places for pests and annoyances: weeds, fleas, mosquitoes, flies, cockroaches, ants, wasps, mold and mildew, bacteria, rodents, and more. So, not surprisingly, schools use a variety of herbicides, insecticides, fungicides, rodent baits, disinfectants, wood preservatives, soil sterilants, and other chemicals to control these perceived threats. Although some schools have set their own standards, there is currently no overarching authority regulating what substances are used around school children, and this realization has caused mounting concern among parents, environmentalists, and government officials.
Lieberman is a sponsor of a U.S. Senate bill (H.R. 3275) to make school districts accountable for the pesticides and herbicides they use in and around schools. Workplaces have far stricter standards, he says, than do our schools, and he is also urging the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to step up surveys of what's used in and around the places where children spend most of their days.
According to a report released just over a month ago by the U.S. Government Accounting Office (GAO), "Use, Effects, and Alternatives to Pesticides in Schools," most states have no procedures for tracking or regulating pest-control procedures in schools (see link to GAO report). And in the past few years there have been sufficient numbers of children exposed to pesticides on school grounds to warrant concern. The GAO has tracked more than 2,000 instances of pesticide exposure in schools during a three-year period -- including more than a dozen cases that required hospitalization.
