[CPEO-BIF] EPA's School Siting Guidelines - How to address the environmental justice dilemma

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

EPA's draft School Siting Guidelines (see 
http://www.epa.gov/schools/siting/) do an excellent job of describing 
the challenges of siting schools in the current physical environment. 
The sections on long-term stewardship incorporate many of the same ideas 
CPEO has been putting forth in New York City. However, the Public 
Involvement section does not adequately recognize the potential value of 
independent technical assistance for communities.

Read carefully, the Guideline describe an environmental justice dilemma:

On the one hand, there are many advantages to locating schools in 
neighborhoods where their students live. On the other hand, many 
students live in areas with subsurface contamination and continuing air 
pollution emissions.

Where the contamination is confined to a potential school property in an 
otherwise suitable location, it is possible to place the school on that 
property and insist on protective remediation and/or mitigation. 
However, where potential exposures come from off site, it is more 
difficult for the local education agency by itself to address those 
releases.

These situations call for area-wide partnerships, in which regulatory 
agencies, local governments, and private parties work together to clean 
entire school neighborhoods, to make healthier both the school and the 
residences where students live. That is, an environmental justice 
perspective requires that school sites not be viewed as islands, but as 
focal points for broader strategies for protecting students and other 
residents.



--


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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