[CPEO-BIF] "Dirty Secrets Under the Schoolyard"

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Dirty Secrets Under the Schoolyard
Parents Demand New Curbs for Schools Built on Contaminated Land

By Christopher Weber
E Magazine
January/February, 2011


On the west side of Chicago, just five miles from the gleaming Loop, the 
Little Village Lawndale High School is the pride of this working-class 
community. It's an impressive, $63-million campus, where 1,400 students 
hit the books beneath mosaics, glass curtain walls and a Mayan solar 
calendar. There's a two-story atrium, two gyms, a child-care center, a 
health clinic, and long-distance learning labs.

But even with the new school, young people have trouble finding safe 
places to hang out in Little Village, where 95,000 people live among 
factories and trucking depots. In addition to the omnipresent gangs, a 
coal-fired power plant looms over the community. Container trucks crowd 
the street, trundling freight bound for the suburbs.

There are so many environmental hazards in Little Village, in fact, that 
local activists offer "toxic tours" of the neighborhood. One time, a 
visiting boy complained about the air quality, what with all the diesel 
exhaust, coal smoke, garbage and chemical fumes. A few minutes later, 
his face was crimsoned by a torrential nosebleed. "We had to come back 
and just do a 'virtual' toxic tour," recalls one of the guides.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.emagazine.com/view/?5470

--


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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