[CPEO-BIF] Building on PCBs

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Navigating the risks of PCBs 

New Bedford Standard-Times (MA)
April 5, 2005
 
The people that live near McCoy Field and New Bedford High School have
every right to be concerned about what may lie under their homes. 

The city has learned that toxic chemicals were routinely dumped on a
large area of land in this section of New Bedford from the 1940s to the
1970s. 

With each subsequent soil testing, the city has learned that there are
polychlorinated biphenyls or PCBs in the soil throughout the area. Tests
of the high school property have just revealed concentrations of the
chemical used for decades in the city as a major component of electrical
capacitors. 

Although some of the most outspoken neighbors argue that Keith Middle
School should not be built on a capped site at McCoy Field, there is
good evidence that we have the technology to reuse this brownfield
safely. 

Schools have been built across the country on capped contaminated sites.
In Massachusetts, there are schools in Lowell, Everett and Springfield
on former dump sites, according to Kim Tisa, the PCB coordinator for the
federal Environmental Protection Agency in the New England region. 


...

For the entire piece, see
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/daily/04-05/04-05-05/a12op262.htm

-- 


Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org
_______________________________________________
Brownfields mailing list
Brownfields@list.cpeo.org
http://www.cpeo.org/mailman/listinfo/brownfields