The Manhattan Times

Possible pollution in two Inwood schools

by Adam Garrett-Clark

Questions have been raised recently about the health of the land under a school building in Inwood that has been in operation since 1993. According to recent information released by the Department of Environmental Conservation, gasoline contamination was found 20 feet below the surface of the land under P.S. 18 and P.S. 278 on W. 219th and 9th Avenue 10 years ago. The report notes a gas station across the street at the time.

The finding was made by Long Island Analytical, an environmental testing facility that was hired to investigate the land before its potential sale in 1999.

The report surfaced through a series of Freedom of Information Act requests filed with the Department of Education and the DEC by Attorney Dawn Phillip of the New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, who has worked on a number of similar cases in the city.

Phillip’s digging revealed the fact that the DEC, ten years later, never followed up on the report of contamination with its own testing. According to DEC spokesperson, Thomas Panzone, the spill report was a low priority compared to the other 3,800 spill reports and emergency events the DEC receives each year. The state environmental agency didn’t learn there were two schools on the site until Phillip’s inquiry in September of 2009, 16 years after the first school opened.

“If the DEC had been alerted that there was a plan to locate a school on that site, this undocumented report would have become a high priority,” Panzone said.

The reason the DEC never knew the site had two schools on it is because the Department of Education is not listed as the owner: the site is leased. As far as the DEC knew the site was under the ownership of CeeGee Delivery Services.

In an age of overcrowded schools in the city, the DOE has begun leasing more and more of its new school sites rather than purchasing them. According to Phillip this allows the DOE to skirt environmental and community review that is normally legally required.

Phillip’s inquiry into the two schools began when Inwood parent Susan Ryan approached her after becoming concerned about the school’s location in an industrial area when her son was zoned for the two schools.

In an editorial penned by Ryan in the Daily News on Oct. 13, she points out that the two schools are directly next door to a car wash, surrounded by a handful of auto body shops and within a block of the Kingsbridge Bus Depot and the Department of Sanitation garage.

On Oct. 13 Ryan and a few concerned parents met at State Senator Eric Schneiderman’s office with California environmentalist Lenny Siegel, director of the Center for the Public Environmental Oversight.

Over the phone Siegel clarified that no one should panic but given the evidence, testing should be done.

Vapor from contaminates deep in the soil can seep into the air in what is called a vapor intrusion, he explained. Oftentimes buildings maintain lower air pressure than the soil beneath, creating a pressure vacuum that will suck the chemicals into the building’s air. Long-term exposure at low concentrations can put people at risk for cancer or neurological problems, he said.

Phillip and the parents are continuing to issue follow-up FOIA requests and are in the process of drafting a letter to the DOE to demand that the building’s air be tested, Phillip said.

If the soil is found to have high levels of contaminates, Siegel said, a pressure mitigation system could be installed to evade vapor intrusion.

In his short email, SCA spokesman Havemann said a vapor barrier was installed under a portion of the building that was newly constructed and that indoor air quality tests were made and showed that they were “appropriate for school use.”

Ryan has continued to work on the environmental issues at the schools despite the fact that her son attends a different District Six school.

Ryan has her own experience with overexposure to chemicals. While hanging up her dry cleaning from a machine as a teenager in 1976 some Tetrachloroethene, also known as Perc, was deposited on her clothes. The fumes from the chemical made her pass out and put her in the hospital for two days, nearly killing her.

“I felt I had an ethical obligation,” she said given her unique perspective. “There’s 900 kids there… And while I don’t want to be an alarmist about this, this is nothing about which to be casual.”