School Children Still at Risk from Toxic Waste
Monday August 25, 2008
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The Superfund was enacted by the US Congress in 1980 in response to the Love Canal disaster. The federal money to respond to releases or threatened releases of hazardous substances comes from a tax on petroleum and chemical industries. Given that Love Canal was thirty years ago, you might think the danger to school children from hazardous waste sites would be a thing of the relatively distant past. Not so, according to an article at CNN which basically says schools can still be built on or near toxic waste dumps. Some states prohibit building a school on an active waste site, but consider a remediated site to be just fine... which it may be, or may not be. I'd rather not take the chance with my kids and I think most parents feel the same way. Unfortunately the Love Canal scenario could still occur today because toxic waste dump land is cheap land and cheap land is affordable for building schools. Kind of makes you stop and think, doesn't it?
Comments
In south Wales (UK) Newport City Council planners in south Wales have granted planning permission to build a school on a toxic waste dump without even requiring an Environmental Impact Assessment to be carried out!
The dump is filled with Monsanto PCBs, as a well as arsenic, zinc, mercury, asbestos, PAHs, and loads of other nasties dumped during the period from about 1930-1970.
It sure does make you think!
hi – i live in murrells inlet, too – and have also been searching out the superfund sites – i did not know there was one in murrells inlet; however, there are two large ones in myrtle beach, the former myrtle beach air force base and AVX. while the government has spent millions and has signed a new 10 year contract for continued cleanup, walah, we find market common, a community – to live, eat & play, right on top of contaminated ground water with documented plumes of horrid chemicals – some 40 acres wide.
now please tell me, how the government sold land to developers to be used for residential, restaurants, parks, ponds, etc. on a still-contaminated superfund site. no one is talking about it – what’s up?? the toxic levels are way beyond the AVX site – yet AVX is being sued by surrounding affected landowners. What about market common? Do real estate agents have to disclose the contaminated groundwater and plumes of toxins? Who’s testing? Who’s watching? Who cares?
S… regarding the Market Common, I would say the reason is, no one knows. Can you point me toward the documentation that supports your post?