EMERGENCY DISCUSSION OF OUR SCHOOL'S ENVIRONMENTAL SAFETY AT NOVEMBER 13 PTA MEETING -- PLEASE ATTEND!!!

For the sake of your child’s health and well-being, please make every possible effort to attend the November 13 PTA meeting. We will be holding an important emergency discussion of our school site’s environmental safety. Representatives of Con Edison, the DOE School Construction Authority, the DOE Office for Health and Safety, and the New York State Departments of Environmental Conservation and Occupational Health will be present to discuss a serious health concern at our school.

On Tuesday, 10/30, Fox 5 News reported that MCSM was one of three New York City schools located on brownfields, sites known to contain toxic substances underground. Fox News stated correctly that the MCSM school building site formerly contained a coal gasification plant beneath which are buried industrial contaminants called coal tars. These substances are chemically similar to the cancer-causing tars found in cigarettes.

Since that report aired on Tuesday, we have learned that the shopping plaza construction site directly across the street was once the location of the Washburn Wire Factory. The current contractor at that site has determined that the soil there also contained industrial contaminants that had to be removed during their excavation work. We have also discovered that the MCSM site was reported to have been a swamp back in the 1880s, at the time the coal gasification plant was opened.

Air and soil quality testing have been conducted at MCSM in past years, most recently in 2002 and 2004 under the authority of Con Edison, our school site’s former owner. Although additional air quality tests have been made inside the school building last year and again just this week through the teachers’ union, no comprehensive air, groundwater, and soil tests have taken place since the construction and renovation.

As of Friday, November 2, there has been no response from the NYC DOE and no attempt has been made by the DOE to reach out to the MCSM parent community. Consequently, the MCSM PTA Executive Board, in conjunction with the Isaac Newton PTA, will be delivering a letter on Monday to Chancellor Klein demanding that a comprehensive and independent environmental site assessment be conducted immediately and the results made public. Copies of this letter will be sent to the Mayor, the Manhattan Borough President, two City Council members, the President of the Teachers’ Union, the NYC Public Advocate’s Office, the local Community Board, and others.

If you have not seen the original Fox News report, you can do so on the Internet. Go to www.myfoxny.com and click on the red News button at the top left of the screen. Then click on the last blue button, Education, on the left side of the next screen. Under Top Education News, click on “View More Education News” and look for the story “Fox Investigates: Toxic School Sites, Part 3.” The full story lasts about 8-9 minutes; MCSM’s portion is roughly in the middle. While in some parts of the Fox story are sensationalized and appear to be factually incorrect, the existence of coal tars under the building and grounds is a documented fact.