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Pulling back the curtains on wage-theft enforcement in MN; Trump's latest attack is on RFK, Jr; NM LGBTQ+ equality group endorses 2024 'Rock Star' candidates; Michigan's youth justice reforms: Expanded diversion, no fees.

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Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg says rebuilding Baltimore's Key Bridge will be challenging and expensive. An Alabama Democrat flips a state legislature seat and former Connecticut senator Joe Lieberman dies at 82.

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Historic wildfires could create housing and health issues for rural Texans, a Kentucky program helps prison parolees start a new life, and descendants of Nicodemus, Kansas celebrate the Black settlers who journeyed across the 1870s plains seeking self-governance.

One in Eight WV Kids Attend Schools Near Chemical Facilities

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Monday, May 19, 2014   

CHARLESTON, W. Va. – Four months after the Freedom Industries spill, a new analysis finds about 38,000 West Virginia children - or one in eight - spend their weekdays at schools in the shadows of potentially dangerous chemical facilities, according to new analysis. Nationally, the estimate is 4.6 million children.

Maya Nye, president of the group People Concerned About Chemical Safety, worked on the figures. She says the Freedom chemical spill scared a lot of folks - but even more frightening was a 2008 explosion at a plant in Institute, W. Va.

Nye says a congressional report found that accident came close to releasing poisons that would have killed thousands.

"My junior high school and the elementary school that's right beside it, are less than half a mile from where that particular incident happened," says Nye. "All of the schools that I attended were within one mile of a high-risk facility."

Her group recommends stronger disclosure rules and greater oversight of these facilities, as well as better emergency response plans.

The national analysis was done at the Center for Effective Government, where Director of Open Government Sean Moulton says parents and community members need to better understand the risks these sites pose, and to push for changes.

"Students do fire drills every day," he notes. "But I don't think many of these schools have ever really talked about what their plan would be if one of these facilities had a major accident while school was in session."

Many water treatment plants have switched from using chlorine gas, which would create a poisonous cloud if a spill occurred, to a much safer form of liquid chlorine.

Moulton says one of the most important things the federal government can do to protect children and communities is to require that facilities use safer chemicals and processes, whenever feasible.

"They have a responsibility to the communities that they operate within - to protect them, to protect their workers - and we think that the government should step in."

An interactive map showing vulnerable schools is on the Center for Effective Government's website.



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