by Ryan Schuessler @RyanSchuessler1 April 29, 2015 5:00AM ET
Karen Nickel had never even heard of lupus before she was diagnosed with the autoimmune disease six years ago. Today she says she takes as many as 18 pills a day — “and that’s just to make me feel OK.”
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Category: News Archive
PROVIDENCE — In 1978, Lois Gibbs took on the powers-that-be when she learned that her son’s school and Love Canal neighborhood in New York were built on a toxic waste dump. Her battle led to the evacuation of hundreds of houses, sparked a massive environmental cleanup, and inspired a made-for-TV movie and the creation of the federal Superfund program.
On Wednesday, 35 years later, Gibbs climbed the steps of the State House to congratulate Rhode Island for enacting what she called the nation’s strongest law against building schools on contaminated sites. She has taken the 2012 bill to Michigan, Massachusetts and New York to promote it as a model.
So why, she asked, would anyone want to “undo the best piece of legislation in this country? … It’s less than a year and already they are trying to tear up the law.
“Why,” she continued, “would people want to put Love Canal beneath a school?”
Gibbs, having learned of the attempt to weaken the law, traveled from Virginia to lend her experience and fame to support the year-old law prohibiting school construction where toxic vapors pose a risk. She joined the rally organized by the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island, Clean Water Action, and the Childhood Lead Action Project.
The groups lobbied for several years for the so-called “school siting law” after losing a fight to stop Alvarez High School from being built on the former Gorham Manufacturing property in Providence. They were not satisfied with the pollution control systems installed at Alvarez.
Under the law, a school cannot be built on land where vapors from contaminants could potentially infiltrate a new building through cracks and holes. The source of the vapors must be removed or a different site chosen.
But if the law is amended as proposed in House and Senate bills, it would permit the use of engineered solutions that the activists oppose as unreliable and costly to maintain for taxpayers — dollars that could otherwise be spent on education.
The understanding of toxic vapors is “a new science,” said Jamie Rhodes, director of Clean Water Action. “There’s no need to make kids guinea pigs.”
Gibbs, who in 1981 founded the Center for Health, Environment and Justice in Virginia, said both of her children became ill from Love Canal.
“We got sick not from the dump itself,” she said. “We got sick from vapor intrusion.”
The bills were drafted after the Rhode Island Mayoral Academies raised concerns about the law. The organization’s efforts to turn the site of the former Red Farm Studios greeting card company in Pawtucket into another Blackstone Valley Prep Charter School were halted when the law was enacted last year.
Story by: Richard Salit
Environmental advocates gathered at the Statehouse Wednesday to protest legislation that would roll back restrictions that prevent schools from building on toxic sites.
The woman who helped lobby for the federal superfund program, Lois Gibbs, spoke to a small group of demonstrators on the capitol steps. Gibbs brought attention to the Love Canal toxic site in Upstate New York back in the 70s. She is lending her star power to fight legislation that would allow schools to be built on sites where toxic vapors could be present. She said the bill would gut a new state law that serves as a national model.
“The current legislation that you passed, that they are trying to gut or change, is extraordinary, absolutely extraordinary.”
Gibbs said that legislation established the most stringent school building codes in the nation. A main sponsor of the legislation allowing school construction on sites with possible toxic vapors, Representative John Edwards of Tiverton, did not return our phone calls. Rhode Island Mayoral Academies support Edwards’ legislation. It says it would allow them to convert the former Red Farm Studios in Pawtucket into another Blackstone Valley Prep Charter School. The environmental advocacy group, Clean Water Action, says work was put on hold due to toxic substances found at the site.
Story by: Bradley Campbell
Original Link: http://ripr.org/post/advocates-protest-legislation-allowing-schools-toxic-sites