Why are children more vulnerable to toxic chemicals?

Children drink more, eat more, and breathe more per pound of body weight. That increases their overall exposure to pesticides and other contaminants in food and water and they absorb a greater proportion of many pollutants from the intestines and the lungs. Children are also smaller and closer to the ground, play in the dirt, handle more objects and put their hands and objects in their mouths more often than adults do. Children's bodies are still developing and thus are more susceptible to major damage, even from seemingly small exposure to toxins. Proper development of children's immune system, nervous system, lungs, and reproductive organs is easily disrupted and toxic exposure during brain development can prevent the brain from developing and functioning properly. 

Why were schools built on or near toxic sites?

Forty years ago, when the typical public school was built, school boards did not understand the seriousness of the threat that chemical exposures posed to human health. Nor was there any understanding of the special vulnerabilities that children have to chemical exposures.After the Love  Canal dumpsite crisis in Niagara Falls, New York, after the clusters of childhood leukemia in Woburn,  Massachusetts, in Toms River, New Jersey, and other similar cases across the nation, we know better. 

Why do schools continue to be built on or near toxic sites?

School districts chronically lack resources required to meet renovation and construction needs. Often pressure to reduce expenses and expedite the process encourages shortcuts. As a result, far too many schools are located on cheap land near or on contaminated property. This is not only a problem of the past, but one of our present and future. 

Isn't there a government agency that is responsible for ensuring safe school sites?

Most of the public believe that government agencies and regulations adequately protect children’s health at school or that some “authority” surely oversees school safety
and takes great care to guard children from exposure to toxic chemicals. This assumption is often incorrect. Only a few very specific and limited laws and regulations
are specifically designed to protect children—for example, regulation of asbestos in schools and lead in wall paint. A 1999 survey of New York State Education
Department staff found that although the department is mandated to protect student health and safety, it does not require schools to employ school nurses; report student
accidents, illness, or injury; or assign staff to help with environmental issues (HSN, 1999). Regulations alone are not the problem. Science has definite limits in
determining children’s health risks. In the case of school siting, there is little scientific evidence that can definitively link a child’s exposure to chemicals from industrial
contamination of school property to a specific health outcome. That does not mean no link exists but that the scientific tools that assess impact are too crude to provide
certainty.