[CPEO-BIF] Vapor intrusion at new Bronx school

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

This article highlights the uncharted intersection between Brownfields
and vapor intrusion. Environmental regulatory agencies, including New
York's Department of Environmental Conservation and Department of
Health, have developed the capacity to address vapor intrusion where
people have been exposed over a period of years. (There remains, still,
a major debate over the level of protection required.)

However, to my knowledge no government agency has a policy, strategy, or
guidance that answers the question: When is it safe to build homes,
schools, or other structures above contamination that is likely to
volatilize into those buildings? The irony is that it is much easier to
protect the public, such as the students at the school described below,
by taking action BEFORE construction.

Lenny

***


Bronx school fails toxin test 

Juan Gonzalez
New York Daily News
June 24, 2005 

Elevated levels of several toxic chemicals have been found in the air
inside a controversial Bronx high school that city officials rushed to
open last September on the site of a former electronics factory.

The city's Department of Education contends the Soundview Educational
Campus, at Colgate and Story Aves., is safe for its 600 students. But
neighborhood residents and Bronx political leaders believe the site is
so contaminated the school should never have opened.

Indoor air tests at the school, performed for the School Construction
Authority on March 25, suggest that chemicals from soil under the
building are seeping inside, records obtained by the Daily News show.

...

For the entire news column, see
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/local/v-pfriendly/story/321880p-275247c.html

-- 


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
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