What is EPA’s School Air Toxics Monitoring Initiative?
As part of a new air toxics monitoring initiative, EPA, state and local air pollution control agencies will monitor the outdoor air around schools for pollutants known as toxic air pollutants, or air toxics. The Clean Air Act includes a list of 187 of these pollutants. Air toxics are of potential concern because exposure to high levels of these pollutants over many decades could result in long-term health effects. EPA selected schools after evaluating a number of factors including results from an EPA computer modeling analysis, the mix of pollution sources near the schools, results from an analysis conducted for a recent newspaper series on air toxics at schools, and information from state and local air pollution agencies. EPA, and our state, local and tribal air pollution control partners are: • collect samples of outdoor air near selected schools over 60 days, • analyze those samples for air toxics of potential concern, • report on levels of air toxics found and their potential for l
