[CPEO-BIF] "Building Safe Schools, Invisible Threats, Visible Actions"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

MEDIA ADVISORY
Center for Health and Environmnental Justice
December 6, 2005

Schools in 45 States Can Be Built On Contaminated Land
Groups in AL, NJ, RI and MA Saying "NO" to Schools On Toxic Sites

Falls Church, VA ? On Tuesday, December 6, 2005, community groups
fighting local schools being built on contaminated land in Alabama, New
Jersey, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island will host coordinated press
events to release a new report, Building Safe Schools, Invisible
Threats, Visible Actions, with the national group, the Center for
Health, Environment and Justice.

Over 7,000 students attending six schools in these four states will
attend schools on or near hazardous sites, if school districts in have
their way. Building on or near contaminated areas is becoming a
dangerous national trend. 

Prompted by the Katrina disaster, which is understood to have spread
industrial contamination across the Gulf Coast states, the Center for
Health, Environment and Justice report, will issue a report titled
Building Safe Schools: Invisible Threats, Visible Actions on December
6th. In it, CHEJ researched the current laws in Louisiana, Mississippi
and Texas, and found that no laws require that public school districts
first test for soil contamination before building a school, playground,
or playing field.  It also provides model safe school siting policy for
local use.

Subsequent research of all 50 states revealed that only five states
prohibit a school from being built on a site identified as hazardous.
Alabama, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and Rhode Island, where schools are
currently being built on contaminated land, do not fall into this small
category. Reverend Franklin Tate, of Birmingham, Alabama, in opposition
to ongoing plans to construct a school adjoining a "tank farm" where
petroleum is stored, said: "A train collided with a gas tanker in July,
causing a gas spill at the very site where the new school will be built.
We continue to raise our collective voice that this toxic and dangerous
site is no place for our children to learn!"  

Despite national disasters such as the 1979 Love Canal story, where the
99th Street School was built next to 20,000 tons of hazardous waste,
schools continue to lack safeguards from being sited on contaminated land.

The key findings of the report: 

* Only five states have laws which require districts to first test the
soil for contaminates prior to site selection, and have an established
remediation plan;
* There is a growing trend for cash-strapped districts to use cheap, and
often toxic land as a school site;
* The poorer the community is, the less clean-up contaminated land receives;
* Due to the lack of regulations, schools reconstructed in the Katrina
affected Gulf Coast region could likely be built on contaminated land
and pose severe health risks to children and employees.


***

For the original press release, the executive summary or the entire
report, and links to additional information, go to
http://www.childproofing.org/sitingadvisory.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
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