[CPEO-BIF] Vapor Intrusion at the Old and New Bronx New School Campuses, New York

[Lenny Siegel <LSiegel@cpeo.org>]

Vapor Intrusion at the Old and New Bronx New School Campuses

by Lenny Siegel
November, 2011

In August 2011 the New York City Department of Education (DOE)  
announced that it was relocating the Bronx New School elementary  
school, also known as PS 51x, from its two-decade home in a leased  
former factory building at 3200 Jerome Avenue in the northern Bronx  
to a closed Catholic School two miles away. It explained that  
sampling conducted earlier in the year had found indoor  
trichloroethylene (TCE) concentrations ten times New York State  
Department of Health’s (DOH’s) exposure standard. Because students  
and teachers had been exposed to this cancer-causing chemical for  
months after the initial test results—and probably for years—the  
announcement ignited a political firestorm. Then indoor testing at  
the new campus showed tetrachloroethylene (PCE) levels above both EPA  
guidelines and ambient (outdoor) air. Based upon DOH’s outdated,  
unprotective PCE standard, DOE declared the new New School safe, and  
despite requests from parents it has announced no plans to conduct  
another round of sampling in the heating season, as required by DOH  
guidance.

To download the 11-page, 2.8 MB PDF, go to
http://www.cpeo.org/pubs/PS51xVaporIntrusion.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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