A day of citywide action - A day with NYCC, elected officials, UFT reps, 32BJ, LIUNA Local 78!

Sometimes working on a campaign can be a little surreal. When you are back in the office doing background reading, making calls and fielding emails – there’s some distance. The campaign can feel like a series of tasks, things to check off my “to-do list”. But a day out in the streets brings things roaring back into perspective.


On Tuesday, October 26th, I stood with elected officials and organizers from New York Communities for Change getting petition signatures and talking to parents about potential PCB-contamination in their children’s schools. As I explained the PCBs problem to parent after parent, I was surprised to learn that many of them were unaware of the issue. Once they got it, though, they were really perplexed. Why would the City put their children in harm’s way? They all asked good questions and most wanted to know why they weren’t aware of what was going on. Why weren’t more people in the NYC Public School community told about the pilot study? Why wasn’t there more education and outreach coming from the City about something that could be so harmful to their kids? All good questions, all things we are trying to make happen. And, yes, they want testing. They want testing now. Something else we want to make happen.

Be sure to take a look at the Interactive Map

Test Our Schools-- A Citywide Day of Action

PCBs Press Conference Tomorrow!!!

WHEN: Thursday, October 7, 2010 at 12 P.M

WHERE:  In front of City Hall
                    260 Broadway
                   New York, NY


Press Conference Outside City Hall to Demand Action on Removing Toxic PCB Chemicals from Public School Classrooms

Activists and elected officials demand that the Department of Education and the EPA take immediate action to test and clean up NYC classrooms

WHAT: PCBs – chemicals which have been proven to pose serious risks to children’s nervous and immune systems and to hamper brain development – are currently found in products like window caulk and lighting fixtures in public schools across New York City. Recent results from a pilot study conducted by the NYC Department of Education and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency found significantly elevated levels of PCBs in two of three schools tested, with levels at the third also above guidances, putting thousands of kids at risk. There is every reason to believe that many schools built or renovated between 1950 and the late 1970s will be similarly contaminated.

This Thursday, October 7, at 12:00 P.M., New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, a civil rights law firm that has been deeply involved in community efforts to rid New York City schools of PCBs, will join other leaders on this issue, including Congressman Jerrold Nadler and other elected officials, labor and community organizations, school employees, and parents, to hold a press conference outside of City Hall calling on the Department of Education and the EPA to test all schools built in the relevant timeframe and bring air levels at all contaminated schools within guidance levels immediately.

Confirmed speakers include:

Congressman Jerrold Nadler, United States House of Representatives

Congressman Joseph Crowley, United States House of Representatives

Congressman José Serrano, United States House of Representatives

Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal, New York State Assembly

New York City Public Advocate Bill de Blasio

Albert Rodriguez, General Counsel, Office of the Bronx Borough President

Miranda Massie, Litigation Director at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest

Regina Castro, New York Communities for Change

Michael Mulgrew, President, United Federation of Teachers

Representatives from SEIU 32BJ and the New York State Laborers’ Union

Parents

September 1st Press Conference

We'd like to thank everyone who was able to come out and make the press event such a success and also thanks to all for your effort and hard work. Here are links to some of the coverage we received:

Parents, Officials Demand City Checks Schools for PCBs

Parents and pols urge city for PCB testing at 740 schools across New York

Group Calls on DOE to Expand PCB Testing at City Schools

NYLPI’s and the PCB-Free NYC Schools Coalition’s final written submission to the EPA

Here is NYLPI’s and the PCB-Free NYC Schools Coalition’s final written submission to the EPA regarding the proposed rule that would lower some regulatory protections for PCBs. It was delivered on Friday, August 20th, 2010. Many thanks to the folks who attended hearings, participated in strategy sessions and contributed to the drafting of the document. There’s also an impressive list of supporting organizations on the signer’s page and it shows that there’s a growing community of committed advocates, parents and experts working to protect our environmental health. To learn more, please contact Gigi Gazon at ggazon@nylpi.org

*Note* Refer to our post from August 4, 2010: http://pcbfree.blogspot.com/2010/08/what-happened-at-epa-hearing.html#more

August 20, 2010


Document Control Office (7407M)
Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics (OPPT)
Environmental Protection Agency
1200 Pennsylvania Ave., NW
Washington, DC 20460


Re: Advance notice of proposed rulemaking on PCB use authorizations

Docket No. EPA-HQ-OPPT-2009-0757
Dear Madam/Sir:
For two years and several months, New York City (NYC) has been home to a series of community efforts to rid schools of polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) and in particular of the PCBs found in caulk. A Bronx coalition of concerned parents, the NYC Coalition for PCB-Free Schools, together with parents, school maintenance workers, teachers, and community members from across the metro area, has worked with environmental justice, environmental, and labor organizations, staff members at the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), and elected officials to advocate for action on this emerging public health threat. This firm has partnered with the coalition in these efforts and represented one of its members in litigation over PCBs in her daughter’s Bronx elementary school. We now submit these comments in response to the advance notice captioned above on behalf of the coalition and other organizations and individuals profoundly troubled by EPA’s current proposal to weaken or eliminate its regulations pertaining to PCBs in caulk and other non-liquid products. We strongly urge EPA not to take this large step in the wrong direction. PCBs in caulk pose a significant threat to children’s health and demand more regulation and enforcement, not less.

NY1 on PCBs

This clip features Gigi Gazon, Community Organizer for New York Lawyers to the Public Interest. Gigi provides technical and organizing assistance to the NYC PCB-free Schools Coalition.

Higher Than Accepted Levels of PCBs Found in Three City Schools

Elevated PCB Levels in Schools

Yesterday, the New York Times published this article:Tests Find Elevated PCB Levels in 3 Public Schools. . .
What are your thoughts?

Staten Island Live on PCBs

Staten Island Live is keeping up to date on the PCBs matter!! Here are two articles to check out:

http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2010/08/pcb_threat_lurks_in_schools.html

http://www.silive.com/news/index.ssf/2010/08/doe_says_8_schools_were_cleare.html

What are your thoughts? Comments?

What happened at the EPA hearing?

Parents turned out in force on July 29th at the Hilton Times Square to bring the EPA a strong message about PCB-contaminated caulk. It struck me that the middle of a street filled with promises of frivolous entertainment was an unlikely place to witness what turned out to be a serious and passionate public meeting (to learn more about what this public meeting was for, please see the previous post, below). In attendance were parents, teachers and advocates representing the Bronx, Brooklyn, Manhattan and Staten Island. Here’s a smattering of highlights as seen from my seat in the middle row:

NOTICE OF PUBLIC HEARING - EPA considers weakening regulations that will protect children’s environmental health

When: July 29, 2010
Where: Empire Room at Hilton Times Square
234 W 42nd St., NY, NY 10035
Time: 6:00 PM – 9:00 PM

Who should be heard?
Parents of children in NYC public schools, Teachers, School Custodians
and other Maintenance Staff, Environmental Justice Advocates, Environmentalists, Environmental Experts, and Concerned Citizens.

Why?
Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) are highly toxic compounds that were banned in 1978.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is considering weakening the regulations for PCB contaminated caulk with the possibility of eliminating them altogether. Under the EPA’s current regulatory framework, PCBs at greater than 50 parts-per-million (ppm) “present an unreasonable risk of injury to health.” EPA also states that caulk containing more than 50 ppm PCBs “must be removed.”

PCBs in caulk pose a significant risk to human health, especially children’s
health.

Background:

More than 500 NYC public schools built in the time frame when PCBs were being added to caulk may contain illegal and potentially dangerous levels of PCBs.

The timing of the EPA’s decision to reassess its PCB regulations is highly inappropriate. It comes on the heels of a recent groundbreaking agreement entered into by the EPA and the NYC Department of Education (DOE) to carry out a pilot study designed to generate a citywide clean-up plan. This is an obvious attempt to avoid dealing with the potential costs of cleaning up PCB-contaminated caulk.

The financial cost of protecting human health is not an acceptable basis for refusing to confront the problem or for undermining efforts to come up with effective solutions.

WE NEED YOU TO MAKE YOUR VOICES HEARD AND ASK THE EPA TO MAINTAIN THE
CURRENT REGULATIONS!

EPA REQUIRES AN RSVP!
In order to attend or speak at the meeting (identified by docket ID number EPA-HQOPPT-2009-0757) PLEASE CALL OR EMAIL: John H. Smith, National Program Chemicals Division, Office of Pollution Prevention and Toxics, Environmental Protection Agency at (202) 566-0512; e-mail address: smith.johnh@epa.gov.
More information can be found here: http://edocket.access.gpo.gov/2010/2010-14522.htm

For more information about this issue please contact
Gigi Gazon (Community Organizer), ggazon@nylpi.org or
Miranda Massie (Sr. Staff Attorney), mmassie@nylpi.org
at New York Lawyers for the Public Interest. (212) 244-4664

EPA trying to ditch 50 PPM standard for caulk | Action required!

On May 4th, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) will be holding a hearing in an effort to lower the protections of the current regulatory threshold for PCB-contaminated caulk, with the possibility of eliminating the protections altogether. Polychlorinated Biphenyls (PCBs) are highly toxic compounds that were banned in 1978.

Scientific studies show that PCBs in caulk pose a significant risk to human health, especially children’s health. We need you to make your voices heard and ask the EPA to keep the current protections. If anything, according to new scientific evidence that is released almost daily, the current protections may not even be enough.