Tuesday, October 26, 2010

CM James, Elected Officials, Community Leaders Demand Removal of PCB Chemicals from Schools; 10/26-27

Council Member Letitia James encourages the community to join her, along with State and City representatives to demand action on removing toxic PCB chemicals from public schools

Elected officials, parents, school employees, and activists reach out to a dozen school communities to demand that the Department of Education and the Environmental Protection Agency immediately carry out citywide PCB testing and clean up.

WHAT: PCBs – chemicals which have been proven to pose serious risks to children’s nervous and immune systems and 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 out of the nearly 700 built or renovated between 1950 and the late 1970s will be similarly contaminated.

This Tuesday, October 26th, elected officials from across the city will join New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, New York Communities for Change, representatives from the UFT, 32BJ, Local 78, other labor organizations, and parents, outside a dozen potentially contaminated NYC public schools as part of a citywide movement to demand that DOE and EPA rid all NYC schools of PCBs. As children file into their classrooms in the morning, parents, teachers, and school employees will all have the opportunity to sign a petition demanding the immediate and comprehensive testing of all schools built or renovated during the time PCBs were used in building materials. A number of schools have also been selected for petitioning during the afternoon dismissal where parents, teachers, and school employees will have the opportunity to sign the petition as children file out of their classrooms.

WHEN: Tuesday, October 26, 2010 & Wednesday, October 27, 2010
WHERE: In front of schools across the city
Start Time: School/Address Elected Official

MORNING
7:05 a.m. SBCC, 977 Fox Street, Bronx - AM Marcos Crespo
8:15 a.m. PS 268, 133 E. 53rd St., Brooklyn - CM Jumaane Williams
8:15 a.m. PS 149, 41 W 117th St., Manhattan - CM Robert Jackson/State Sen. Bill Perkins

AFTERNOON
2:45 p.m. PS 270. Dekalb & Classon, Brooklyn - CM Tish James
2:45 p.m. PS 332, 51 Christopher Ave., Brooklyn - AM William Boyland
2:45 p.m. PS 38, Pacific & Nevins, Brooklyn - CM Stephen Levin

****Wednesday, October 27th
7:30 a.m. PS 53, 10-45 Nameoke St., Rockaway - CM James Sanders

Contact: Lana Gersten
212-784-5714
917-727-6025

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