[CPEO-BIF] New Jersey schools
Lenny Siegel
lsiegel at cpeo.org
Mon Oct 23 20:55:34 PDT 2006
New Jersey Program Bought Polluted Lands for Low-income Schools
In what critics consider one of the more blatant examples of
environmental racism, a fund supposedly intended to give a leg up to
impoverished pupils of color was used to put them at risk while favoring
private developers.
by Megan Tady
New Standard News
October 23, 2006
Residents in Gloucester City, New Jersey normally would have welcomed
the state-funded construction of a new middle school. Instead, LaRae
DiCamillo found herself fighting it.
The school was slated to be built on a Superfund site - highly
contaminated land scheduled for cleanup by the federal government - and
DiCamillo, the parent of a second grader, was outraged.
"I've begged [the government], 'Please don't do this to our kids,'"
DiCamillo said.
But the toxic land purchased for Gloucester City's middle school may not
be an anomaly.
Evidence suggests that the state government, as part of a major
public-works project to build and renovate schools in low-income
communities and communities of color, had purchased contaminated land
for school construction in several districts.
...
For the entire article, see
http://newstandardnews.net/content/index.cfm/items/3800
--
Lenny Siegel
Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
c/o PSC, 278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
http://www.cpeo.org
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