[CPEO-BIF] School siting legislation

[Lenny Siegel <lennysiegel@gmail.com>]

[For the original, formatted release, go to http://www.chej.org and 
scroll down to "Victory" under What's New.]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Center for Health, Environment and Justice
DECEMBER 19, 2007

PRESIDENT BUSH & CONGRESS INSTRUCT EPA TO ESTABLISH 1ST EVER FEDERAL 
GUIDELINES TO PROTECT SCHOOL SITINGS FROM TOXIC CONTAMINATION

Lois Gibbs Applauds Federal Action 30 Years After Children and 1st 
Publicly Recognized School in Nation Exposed at Contaminated Love Canal

WHAT: Today, by signing into law the Energy Independence and Security 
Act of 2007 (“The Energy Bill"), the President has instructed the EPA to 
develop the nation's first-ever guidelines to give state legislatures 
direction when it comes to laws protecting where schools may be 
physically sited in relationship to toxic contamination sites. Prior to 
today's bill becoming law, no such federal instruction existed.

The school siting guidelines instruction is part of a larger section in 
the law on High Performance School Buildings which will help schools 
identify, track and improve indoor air quality problems.

Download sec. 504, the Environmental Health Section of the law: 
http://www.chej.org/newsreleases/Energy%20Independence%20and%20Security%20Act 
%20of%202007.pdf?SectionID=1&SubSectionID=93&ArticleID=52788&TM=51350.43

HISTORY: From contamination of the 99TH Street School at Love Canal, NY 
leading up to today's legislation

In 1978, led by Lois Gibbs, Love Canal residents discover a toxic waste 
site located next to the 99th Street Public School. Toxic chemicals from 
the nearby Hooker Chemical Toxic Waste Dump, later sold to Occidental in 
the 1950s, were leaking into the nearby schoolyard of the 99th Street 
Public School and contaminating students as well as the community. As 
part of the nation's focus on the contamination at Love Canal, in years 
following, national collaborative work on children's environmental 
health including school sitings began.  For more information on school 
siting or to read case studies of contaminated schools: 
http://www.childproofing.org/school_siting.htm

2002, Child Proofing Our Communities (CPOC), a CHEJ program to prevent 
environmental health harm to children, developed the only existing 
National Model School Siting Policy guidelines to help state groups 
advance protective school siting policies for their states: 
http://www.childproofing.org/documents/school_siting_model_legislation.pdf

October 1, 2002, Lois Gibbs testifies before the United States Senate 
Environmental and Public Works Committee, calling upon the Senate to 
pass federal guidelines preventing schools from being located close to 
contaminated sites: 
http://www.childproofing.org/school_siting_gibbs_testimony.htm

2005, working in conjunction with the Rhode Island Legal Services, 
CHEJ/CPOC released survey findings from all fifty states; forty-five of 
America's states had no school siting laws to prevent building a school 
on a toxic site:  http://www.childproofing.org/school_siting_50_state.htm

December 19, 2007, President Bush signs into law the Energy Independence 
and Security Act of 2007, asking for the first-ever federal guidelines 
for states when they consider protective policies for school building 
siting.

QUOTE: "These instructions by the President are the silver lining in an 
otherwise cloudy energy bill. The instruction for federal guidelines to 
be developed to protect our children is far too long in coming. 
Locating a school near a toxic waste site is utterly inexcusable. 
Exposing children to known, harmful chemicals is not something that 
should ever happen in America.  Congress made the only correct decision 
it could in including this instruction to the EPA for guidelines as part 
of today's Energy Bill," Lois Gibbs, founder and executive director, 
Center for Health, Environment & Justice.  "We applaud the President and 
Congress for including this action.  The next step is for state 
legislatures, governors and elected leaders to use the guidelines to 
develop common sense, preventative legislation in each of the forty-five 
states currently without legislation on their books which would prevent 
harm from coming to children attending schools located near toxic waste 
sites."

About CHEJ The Center for Health, Environment & Justice exists to mentor 
the movement to build healthier communities by empowering people to 
prevent harm in as many ways, and for as many people, as possible.  We 
believe this can happen when people and groups have the power to play an 
integral role in promoting human health and environmental integrity. 
CHEJ's role is to provide the tools, the direction, and the 
encouragement to these people and groups, so that they can build strong, 
healthy communities where they live, work, learn, shop, play and pray. 
Following her successful effort to prevent further harm for the people 
living in contaminated Love Canal, Lois Gibbs founded CHEJ in 1981 in 
order to continue mentoring others seeking to prevent harm. CHEJ 
provides mentoring assistance to communities, homeowners, families and 
individuals throughout the country. To date, CHEJ has assisted over 
10,000 groups nationwide.  Currently, CHEJ is mentoring community groups 
in Florida, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina and Ohio. 
Details on CHEJ's efforts to help people and communities prevent harm 
can be found at http://chej.org/ .

-30-

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