A campaign issue opens up: Mayor Bloomberg supports a school on a site that has toxic chemicals, and dismisses public concern. Definitely something for the public to think about when in November he asks New Yorkers to re-elect him.

Betsy Combier

Bronx School Fails Toxin Test
NY DAILY NEWS, June 24, 2005

Elevated levels of several toxic chemicals have been found in the air inside a controversial Bronx high school that city officials rushed to open last September on the site of a former electronics factory. The city's Department of Education contends the Soundview Educational Campus, at Colgate and Story Aves., is safe for its 600 students. But neighborhood residents and Bronx political leaders believe the site is so contaminated the school should never have opened.

Indoor air tests at the school, performed for the School Construction Authority on March 25, suggest that chemicals from soil under the building are seeping inside, records obtained by the Daily News show. Those tests detected elevated levels of two chlorinated solvents - known as TCE and PCE - in five of seven air samples taken from the school's cafeteria, kitchen and from first-floor classrooms. In addition, soil vapor tests conducted under the school's foundation revealed far higher levels of the same two chemicals.

Recent federal studies have confirmed that vapors from contaminated soil sometimes penetrate through the concrete foundations of buildings. In high doses, both TCE and PCE damage the brain, kidney and liver, while long-term low-level exposure can cause cancer. The TCE and PCE levels inside the school do not qualify as an immediate health problem under current state health regulations.
But the levels are high enough that the regulations require the city to "identify the source" of the chemicals and "reduce exposures."

Those same TCE levels would trigger immediate remediation in a state like Colorado, which has more stringent regulations. The city's March 25 tests also detected low levels of more than a dozen other organic chemicals at the Soundview school. A copy of the test results was made available to The News by school officials after repeated requests. Amazingly, Mayor Bloomberg's top school officials say the tests show there's nothing to worry about. "I'm pleased with the results," said Vinicius Castagnola, vice president for quality assurance at the Department of Education. "We are seeing low concentrations in the school or in the subslab but no emerging conditions." Castagnola acknowledged "there are some monitoring steps to be followed," and he conceded the state Health Department will now require more testing at the school.

As for all those other chemicals detected in the school's air, Education Department spokeswoman Kelly Devers dismissed them as "related to janitorial and cleaning supplies stored in the school." The low concentrations, she said, "didn't warrant any corrective measures." None of this reassures local residents.
They are furious that City Hall and top school officials repeatedly have stonewalled their requests for all environmental testing data. "The Department of Education won't even return our calls," said Janette Wipper, an attorney for the Concerned Residents of Soundview. "They [city officials] are bending over backward not to find any connection to Loral's production on the site," said Mathy Stanislaus, an environmental consultant hired by residents to review the city's testing.

Loral Electronics was the military contractor that operated a factory on the site for decades until it shut the plant in 1996. "Loral never did a cleanup,"
said Mary McKinney, who lives across the street from the site, "and it's continued to be a hazard in our community." Not until last spring, when construction crews suddenly appeared and began round-the-clock work, did residents or Bronx elected officials learn about the city's plan for a school on the site.
That's also when they discovered that Dennis Walcott, the city's deputy mayor for education, had bypassed all the normal public review processes and quietly signed a zoning waiver so the city could rush to lease and renovate a two-story building on the site in time to open the new school in September.

This kind of blatant disregard for the city's democratic process at the community board and City Council level has become all too common in projects like the West Side stadium. Even worse, as the Daily News' Bill Egbert has reported, residents belatedly discovered the city's tests of the soil and ground water at the site revealed huge amounts of lead, mercury, cadmium, chromium and other toxic metals - levels far above acceptable state standards. What was the city's response to its own shocking test results? It threw a foot of dirt on the contaminated soil around the proposed school, then assured residents that everything was safe.

Now, with toxic vapors apparently rising from that soil and seeping inside the building, Bloomberg's people keep insisting there's nothing wrong. "I just can't believe they built this school at this site." said Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-Bronx, Queens).

Originally published on June 24, 2005

Ferrer Says City Should Close School at Old Industrial Site
By DIANE CARDWELL, NY TIMES, June 1, 2005

LINK

Fernando Ferrer called on the Bloomberg administration yesterday to shut down a potentially contaminated Bronx high school, in an effort to focus his campaign on the school system, an area where Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg is considered vulnerable.

The city's Department of Education opened the school, the Soundview Educational Campus, in 2004 on part of a site that had been used for decades by a defense contractor, Loral Electronics, despite an environmental assessment done for the city that had showed levels of mercury, chromium, lead, arsenic and other toxic substances much higher than state standards allow.

The environmental report indicated that the contamination would pose a hazard only during the construction of the school, but Mr. Ferrer's mayoral campaign challenged that view, charging that the report was altered and rushed to allow an existing building to become a school.

''This is not the way we should be building New York,'' said Mr. Ferrer, a Democrat and a former Bronx borough president. Standing on Story Avenue outside the school, which has 1,000 students, he added, ''This is not the way we should be building a strong and hopeful future for all of our children.''

Mr. Ferrer also said that the city granted a zoning change for the property, in an area designated for industrial use, based on a request that did not specify the levels of pollutants found in the soil and groundwater.

Bloomberg administration officials denied that they had acted improperly or put anyone in danger at the school and said that they had followed all of the procedures recommended by an environmental consultant to make the site safe.

''We would never expose any of our children, teachers or staff to unsafe learning or working conditions,'' a deputy schools chancellor, Kathleen Grimm, said in a statement. ''The school was opened after we thoroughly tested the site. The school was safe when it opened and continues to be safe today.'' City officials worked with representatives of the community, teachers and state environmental and health officials to address all of the concerns, Ms. Grimm continued.

The school is next to an industrial area where trucks idle and frequently stir up plumes of dust. Although students and staff at the school have not fallen ill, Mr. Ferrer said it was too early to know what the effects might be.

In addition, Mr. Ferrer said, Bloomberg officials failed to include local residents, who are overwhelmingly black, in the planning process for the school, a potential civil rights violation.

But a Bloomberg administration official said that because the school was created through a lease conversion, the city was not required to undergo a public review, although officials said they had worked with the community in planning for the school.

The Bloomberg campaign has also begun running its first two English-language radio advertisements. One features former Mayor Edward I. Koch, who introduces himself as a ''tour guide'' for Mr. Bloomberg's economic plan. The ad emphasizes projects outside of Manhattan -- in the Bronx, Staten Island and Queens -- in what appears to be an effort to combat the perception that his tenure has been Manhattan-centric.

The other features former Mayor Rudolph W. Giuliani, who applauds Mr. Bloomberg for continuing the drop in crime for which Mr. Giuliani had become known. ''He did the impossible,'' Mr. Giuliani said in the ad. ''He improved on the crime reduction.''

Mr. Bloomberg's campaign also trumpeted the endorsement of three fire unions, but the biggest fire union, the Uniformed Firefighters Association, which has been sparring with the mayor over emergency response rules, is not among those that have endorsed him.

Gotbaum and Elected Officials Press City to Get Pollution-Spewing, Garbage-Filled Trucks Away from Bronx High School

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New York City Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum and elected officials from the Bronx today called upon the City to take immediate action to remove illegally parked, foul-smelling diesel trucks filled with solid waste from a lot next to an 800-student high school in the Soundview neighborhood.

"These trucks present a double-edged threat to the community because they emit pollutants and because they are filled with solid waste. They have no business near a school or residential community. Residents say they can smell the garbage from blocks away," Gotbaum said.

Gotbaum was joined by Council Member Maria del Carmen Arroyo, Council Member Anabel Palma, Community Board 9 Chairman Enrique Vega, Community Board 9 District Manager Francisco Gonzalez and members of the Concerned Residents Organization outside 1440 Story Avenue, the site of the lot and the high school.

"The former Loral Electronics site is of serious concern to our community, the current use of the site in particular. The owner(s) of the property are using it to park large trucks filled with solid waste. Trucks are left, filled with waste, parked in the lot overnight. This has a serious environmental impact and exacerbates an already critical quality of life problem in the community. The site is located within close proximity to a large residential area, which is already suffering the maladies associated with the pollution and stench created by the various waste transfer stations and the sewage treatment plant in the Hunts Point area. We are calling on the owner(s) to be good neighbors and to cooperate with the community. We are asking them to change the use of the site, and to help us make our community a better place to live, work and play," Arroyo said.

"We have to make a commitment as a city that the single highest priority is the health and safety of our children. The situation at 1440 Story Ave. is a prime example of this city's failure to commit to that priority. Parking sanitation trucks on the same property as an educational facility is wrong and we as a community and as a city must stand up and say 'No'. If our children can not even be assured of a clean healthy space to learn and grow how can we ever expect them to flourish into productive positive adults," Palma said.

"Community Board 9 has joined with the Concerned Citizens Organization and elected officials in this effort against the diesel trucks out of concern for the health and well being of the residents and students who are being affected. These tractor trailers are nuisances and health hazards because of the noise they make and the material they carry," Gonzalez said.

"The raw waste in the trucks and the stench of the fumes from the idling trucks are stinking up the community. This should not be happening in a neighborhood with such high rates of cancer and asthma. We can't even open our windows because of it," said Concerned Residents Organization Chairperson Mary McKinney.

Gotbaum recently wrote a letter to the Department of Buildings, Department of Sanitation, Department of Transportation, and Department of Environmental Protection, calling on them to remove the trucks, which illegally park and idle next to the Soundview Educational Complex. Two 19-story Mitchell-Lama buildings located near the educational complex are also affected by the trucks.
In the letter, Gotbaum writes, "I have heard reports that up to 30 trucks at a time have been parked on this property. These are large tractor-size trucks with a high level of emissions and enough weight to break down the contaminated soil, causing toxins to stir in the air. The asthma rate in the neighborhood is high to begin with, and a concentration of diesel fumes can only make it worse."

In her letter and at the news conference, Gotbaum pointed out two Department of Buildings violations for "dead storage" and illegal truck parking, which strengthens the argument that diesel trucks do not belong on this property.

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