A special needs elementary school near Brooklyn’s toxic Gowanus Canal has become the latest nearby facility to receive an air pollution warning, according to information obtained by The Post.
Records show that air and soil samples from two buildings occupied by PS 372 on Carroll Street found traces of carcinogenic vapors and other hazardous substances, including benzene and xylene.
It was found in the school’s annex on the corner of 219th Street.st St. Mary’s Hospital, which treats children as young as 3 and those undergoing occupational and physical therapy, is so contaminated that the state plans to install equipment at the hospital to vent pollutants underground and remove harmful fumes.
“While the concentrations in the indoor air do not pose a significant health risk, some of the chemicals exceed concentrations normally found in indoor air,” Daniel Tucholski of the state Health Department said in a June 12 letter to the Rev. Orlando Lewis of Our Lady of Peace Church, which leases its building to the 3K-5th grade school.
As The Washington Post first reported last month, the state Department of Environmental Conservation is investigating about 100 parcels in and around the canal to determine how many of them are contaminated. Of the 626 parcels targeted in the first phase of the investigation, 131 have been tested, and 21 have airborne toxin concentrations above “acceptable” levels, including St. Mary Star of the Sea Church in Carroll Gardens, where Al Capone was married.
Although PS 372 and Our Lady of Peace are just outside the inspection area, the school was tested as a “precautionary measure.”
The school is planning to hold a virtual “town hall meeting” on Monday that will be the first opportunity for parents, who first learned of the risk in an end-of-year letter from the principal two weeks ago, to ask DEC and Department of Health officials about the findings.
“What we want to know at this meeting is who is responsible and how soon. [the state’s remediation work] “It can be done,” said one concerned parent.
The contaminants likely came from a fuel leak at the site discovered 20 years ago or from a nearby Con Edison facility on Third Avenue. A long history of environmental issues“It’s a big step forward,” said Walter Hung, head of an environmental database company based in Ithaca, New York. Toxic target.
On the east side of the canal, at PS 32 on Union Street, some parents have been outraged after vapors of the cancer-causing chemical tetrachloroethylene were detected in the main reception area, but the DEC maintains the levels are serious and remedial work is needed.
Daniel Bates, a New York-based journalist who has children at the school, accused the state of not taking the findings seriously.
“Given that there is widespread contamination literally close to our homes and beneath our schools, we absolutely need to make sure our schools are safe,” he said.
A state health department spokesman said data collected across multiple sections of PS32 “indicates no further action is needed.”
