[CPEO-BIF] "Leasing Rules Eyed after Toxic School's Closure" (Bronx, New York)

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

LEASING RULES EYED AFTER TOXIC SCHOOL'S CLOSURE

When a Bronx school shut this summer because of contamination,  
parents of students who'd attended the site over the past two decades  
worried about their children's health—and wondered why the problem  
wasn't detected earlier.

Jasmeet Sidhu
City Limits
December 28, 2011


The Bronx New School (P.S. 51) had seen its share of typical  
childhood illnesses during its 23-year history. But ever since the  
city told parents in early August that their northwest Bronx building  
was contaminated with dangerous levels of an industrial toxin, each  
memory of a headache or nosebleed - plus one story of a former  
student who died of kidney failure - has caused added anxieties.

The news meant that for the last two decades, kindergartners through  
fifth graders at the school located in a former lamp factory at 3200  
Jerome Avenue may have unwittingly inhaled daily doses of  
trichloroethylene (TCE), a metal degreaser that was recently declared  
to be a carcinogen to humans by the federal Environmental Protection  
Agency.

Department of Education officials knew as early as January, 2011 that  
the level of TCE contaminants found in its hallways were nearly 10  
times above the current safe exposure standards set by New York  
State. Another test in March found TCE nearly 10,000 times above the  
safe level in the soil vapor below the first floor cafeteria.  
However, parents were not informed of the toxins for several more  
months, after the decision to transfer all P.S. 51's children three  
miles away to a Catholic school in Crotona had already been made.


...

For the entire article, see
http://www.citylimits.org/news/articles/4500/city-leasing-rules-eyed- 
after-toxic-school-s-closure

--

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

_______________________________________________
Brownfields mailing list
Brownfields@lists.cpeo.org
http://lists.cpeo.org/listinfo.cgi/brownfields-cpeo.org