Environmentalists, concerned about public schools built on or near polluted property, asked Gov. Corzine today to make a $3.9 billion fund off-limits for such projects.
“Because there are no state laws that prohibit schools from being built on contaminated sites, the health and safety of schoolchildren are severely threatened,” said Bill Wolfe, director of Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility.
Jim Gardner, a spokesman for Corzine, said the governor signed the so-called Kiddie Kollege law in 2007 to prevent such construction, and other authority lies within the Department of Environmental Protection and the Schools Development Corporation.
“The DEP has clear and stringent clean-up standards,” Gardner said. “The SDA is required to ensure that all school construction sites met DEP standards.”
Last month, The Record reported how Clifton voters agreed to borrow $11 million to convert an industrial building into classrooms, yet they were unaware that the property contained arsenic, pesticides and other dangerous compounds. State officials acknowledged that local authorities are not required to run soil and other tests on such properties before they ask voters to approve acquiring them.
In Union City, authorities abandoned plans for a four-story high school in 2006, after The Record reported the property – once a key location for the Manhattan Project – was polluted with radioactive uranium and other toxics, none of them disclosed to residents.
On Monday, the Senate and Assembly approved borrowing $3.9 billion to help overhaul decrepit schools, some of them dating to the 19th century…