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[Sneak hammering sound under after Narr begins and fade under….]
Once the construction crews finish their work, some 24 hundred mostly African-American students will attend school on the site in Mott Haven. But the site is saturated with toxins. Lead, mercury and benzene were dumped in the soil by an old rail yard, auto shop and plant that turned coal into gas. The city says it's spending over thirty million dollars to clean the site … and removed some nineteen thousand cubic yards of contaminated soil. But Cresswell Munnings lives nearby, and he says he can't believe that the city is building new schools and a sports field on the site.
ACT: Cresswell Munnings (:12): I'm concerned about my health because I live here and we are affected. I say, shame on the city.
The Department of Education declined to do a taped interview. But in an email exchange, a spokesperson said that most of the land in New York City contains toxins anyway, and that Mott Haven needed a new campus because its schools are severely overcrowded. P.S. 156 is one of these schools. It was built on stilts because it's right next to the contaminated construction site. Keisha Manuel's son is a second grader at the school, and she says that since excavation began next door over a year ago, teachers and students have been suffering from rashes, headaches and asthma attacks.
ACT: Keisha Manuel (:10): Right now, what's going on right here is a monstrosity …. The children are getting sick. You have to think of the children first, everything else comes last.
Mott Haven parents and community activists gathered next to the curtain of dusty tarps that surrounds the building site. They say that they want to know how the area will ever be safe enough for students. Community Board Chair D. Lee Ezell says the city hasn't been clear about how it'll manage the contamination that will remain even after the cleanup efforts.
ACT: D. Lee Ezell (:14): New York City can do better than that! The community is simply asking, show us that the site will be safe as children are there on a daily basis.
Late in January, the city released a document called the Site Management Plan. It spells out the technical details about how it will control poisonous vapors and contamination that's still flowing into the soil. The document was six inches thick. Lawyer Dave Palmer says it's too complex for residents to understand without the help of independent experts.
ACT: Dave Palmer (:14): It's a bit disingenuous to put a document like this on a parent's lap and say, all right, comment let us know what you think about this. The city uses experts to put this together and the community needs experts to make sense of it.
A private group called the Mertz Gilmore Foundation announced this month that it would pay independent experts to look at the plan. One of these experts is Lenny Siegel. He directs the Center for Public Environmental Oversight in Mountain View, California. Siegel says the toxins that will remain in the soil will continue to be dangerous for several decades. The city, he says, will have to continuously suck poisonous vapors out of the ground … and maintain strong barriers between the soil and the buildings.
ACT: Lenny Siegel (:16): You're relying on long-term oversight. Contamination that we're talking about lasts for a long time, and you have to be diligent. Someone has to be responsible for watching, making sure that nobody drills a hole in the floor, that the astroturf doesn't get torn.
Residents say they're skeptical that the city will be diligent. School officials removed soil from five especially contaminated spots in the site only after independent experts made a fuss during the initial clean-up. John Fielder lives next to the construction and says he sees the workers cutting corners everyday.
ACT: John Fielder (:12): They're supposed to be cleaning the trucks before they leave the site. I watch. Every night. And I don't see any trucks being cleaned before they go out into the street, carrying the contaminants with them on those wheels throughout the neighborhood.
But the DeMatteis Construction Group says that its supervisors see all trucks drive through a washing station before they leave the site every night. Meanwhile, lawyer Dave Palmer is helping community members sue the city because he says it released the Site Management Plan too late. He wants to slow down the construction to make sure education officials take every precaution before the new schools open.
ACT: Dave Palmer (:07): We're talking about kids. You know, some of these chemicals cause learning disabilities and it's a learning facility - it's kind of ironic.
The case was submitted to the New York Supreme Court last summer, and the parties are still waiting for the judge's ruling. For now, construction in Mott Haven will continue.
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Ailsa Chang, Columbia Radio News