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Children At Risk: How Air Pollution From Power Plants Threatens The Health Of America’s Children 5/14/2002 Children_at_Risk.pdf Illinois.pdf News Release

Executive Summary

As the new home of Illinois PIRG's environmental work, Environment Illinois can be contacted with any questions regarding this report.

Millions of children in America today are exposed to unhealthy air at home, at school, or at their playground. Scores of new studies each year demonstrate that children are more susceptible to air pollution than adults. Studies indicate that exposure to air pollutants such as particulate matter, sulfate, sulfur dioxide gas, and ozone can result in reduced lung function, asthma attacks, increased visits to the doctors office and emergency rooms, hospitalizations and may, very tragically, also lead to increased risk of infant death.

Several factors may increase the risk of all children to air pollution relative to adults. One of the greatest causes is the higher activity level of children. Pound for pound, children breathe more air for their size than adults do. Children spend more time playing outdoors, which increases their exposure to outdoor air pollution. The lung’s defense systems in children are still developing, and are thus unable to defend against the effects of pollutants as effectively as adult lungs. Children also suffer a higher prevalence of asthma than adults, and asthma makes kids far more susceptible to impacts of air pollution. Finally, a higher percentage of children than adults live in poverty, meaning that their access to health care is more limited, and recent studies indicate that air pollution affects those living in poverty more than those with means.

Health researchers have long known that air pollution reduces the lung function of children and causes asthma attacks, based on research conducted at schools and summer camps over the past few decades. Moreover, asthma has been on the rise in the U.S., having nearly doubled in the past two decades. Why is this? Is it, in part, due to some form of air pollution? We don’t yet know. One California study suggests that kids who play sports year-round in polluted areas have more newly diagnosed cases of asthma. Another indicates that people who grow up in high ozone areas have a higher prevalence of asthma.

Children at Risk highlights recent research and describes links between pollutants associated with power plants and children’s health. Studies across the world have linked particulate matter exposures to infant deaths. Moreover there is a suggested link between air pollution and adverse birth outcomes, such as slowed development and low birth weight in fetuses, coupled with higher premature births. Newborns also face setbacks from power plant pollutants and possible stunted lung development. All of these adverse outcomes put America’s children at risk for health problems later in life.

Aging power plants are the chief sources of many of the pollutants that affect children in the U.S. For example, two thirds of the sulfur dioxide gas emitted in the U.S. comes from power plants. Sulfur dioxide, itself a potential health risk near smokestacks, converts into harmful sulfate particulate matter and sulfuric acid downwind of the plant.

Global warming, driven by our dependence on fossil fuels to generate electricity, presents different risks to children. In a recent health effects analysis 1 , my co-investigators and I found that substantial public health gains will result in the nations that mitigate carbon dioxide emissions by switching from carbon intensive energy sources to cleaner technologies due to the associated reductions in particulate matter and ozone smog. The primary beneficiaries of these policies will be children.

In summary, numerous risk analyses have linked power plants to pollutants that can harm children. Considering these potential health risks, Congress should take action now to provide relief to our children by closing the Clean Air Act loophole that still allows hundreds of power plants to avoid modern pollution standards some 30 years after the Act was made law and by requiring steep cuts in mercury and carbon dioxide emissions.

George D. Thurston, Sc.D. New York University, April 2002