[CPEO-BIF] Mott Haven campus, the Bronx - judge says Site Mangement Plan required before construction

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

City Is Cited for Insufficient Safeguards at School Campus Being Built 
on Brownfield

By MIREYA NAVARRO
New York Times
November 9, 2008

New York City officials violated state environmental law when they began 
building a school complex on a contaminated site in the South Bronx 
without first coming up with a plan to ensure that students and the 
public would not be exposed to pollutants in the future, a state judge 
has ruled.

The decision came in response to a lawsuit filed in 2007 by a group of 
parents and community leaders trying to force the School Construction 
Authority to conduct a more comprehensive environmental review for the 
multischool campus, which is still under construction in Mott Haven in 
the South Bronx.

The suit accused the city of going ahead with the project without a plan 
to monitor air quality and check for other environmental problems after 
the city cleaned up the site — a 6.6-acre parcel that once contained a 
railyard, a laundry and a plant that made gas from coal. The school 
agency eventually came up with a plan, which is now under review by the 
State Department of Environmental Conservation.


...

For the entire article, see
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/09/nyregion/09brownfield.html?_r=1&scp=3&sq=By%20MIREYA%20NAVARRO&st=cse&oref=login


For CPEO's review of the Mott Haven Site Management Plan, which was 
produced after construction was well under way, see
http://www.cpeo.org/pubs/MottHavenSMP.pdf

--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
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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