New School on Polluted Site Energizes
Environmental Coalition
Children play in the recreation area behind the Springfield Middle School, in Providence, where lawyer Steven Fischbach says two feet of fill is potentially not enough to protect students from underground pollutants.
Children play in the recreation area behind the Springfield Middle School, in Providence, where lawyer Steven Fischbach says two feet of fill is potentially not enough to protect students from underground pollutants.PROVIDENCE
No matter which way you look from inside the city’s new Adelaide High School in the Reservoir Triangle neighborhood, the views aren’t good.
Out back, a tall chainlink fence encloses a huge pile of debris. Off to the side, several acres between the school and Mashapaug Pond are also fenced off and signs warn people to keep out.
The front of the school faces an empty Stop & Shop supermarket and parking lot. Inside the store, crews are drilling through the concrete floor so they can test for contaminants in the soils underneath.
Adelaide assistant principal John O. Craig, supervising students at the end of a recent school day, points to the ductwork designed to pull toxic gases from the soil and direct them away from classrooms. He thinks the school is safe, but barely adequate for his students.
“We’re doing the best we can with what we have,” says Craig. “But I’d just like to get a ball field and a running track for my students.”
The only other place in Rhode Island where a school has been built on contaminated land is just a short way up Route 10, also in Providence. The city built a middle school and an elementary school on a closed landfill off Springfield Street. The School Department continually vents harmful gases and fills places where soils and walks have caved in.
Both projects faced neighborhood opposition and lawsuits, but the city, in a rush to serve a growing student population, built them anyway.
Soon, there may be more organized action to ensure that no community in Rhode Island ever again builds a school on a contaminated site.
A coalition of advocacy groups has incorporated the Environmental Justice League of Rhode Island. The coalition plans to raise money and hire staff to protect the interests of the poor and minorities in Rhode Island’s cities and to tackle other issues such as dilapidated housing and pollution from traffic.
Two state legislators have also submitted bills that would prevent municipalities from building schools on landfills or Brownfield sites.
Connecticut recently enacted environmental justice legislation that goes even further.
Providence officials insist they have ensured the safety of the city’s children. But the city is old with a history of heavy industry, so it’s not easy to locate significant tracts of land that don’t require some cleanup.
“We don’t have a lot of land to work with,” says Karen Southern, spokeswoman for Mayor David N. Cicilline. She said the mayor would never build a school on a site that wasn’t deemed 100 percent safe by the state Department of Environmental Management. “That’s the mayor’s number-one priority.”
The coalition is being promoted by groups fighting lead poisoning, asthma and toxic pollution. Its supporters range from statewide groups such as the Environment Council of Rhode Island to more urban-focused groups such as the Hartford Park Residents Association and the Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council.
Its goals, according to a mission statement, are to make available more information about pollution sources to neighbors and parents, to have people treated fairly and to give them equal and fair access to a “safe, healthy and sustainable environment at home, at work, at school and in public places.”
“Lots of organizations work on environmental justice, but we all operate in our own areas,” said one organizer, Liz Colon. She is a leader of CLAP, the Childhood Lead Action Project. “Now we want to bring people together collectively. And we want to get people involved who don’t know they are being affected.”
Steven Fischbach, a lawyer for Rhode Island Legal Services, said when Providence residents first came to him in 1999 because they were opposed to the city’s plans to build schools on the Springfield Street dumpsite, “we felt that environmental problems affecting poor people and people of color weren’t getting addressed.”
Fischbach said many people he represents in the city don’t know whom to call when they need help, and they are used to not getting help from the government.
“It’s not like people didn’t try, Fischbach said. “They are so used to losing, it’s like, why bother. So many people feel like they can’t fight city hall.”
Fischbach represented the Hartford Park Tenants Association and sued the state DEM, the Providence School Board and Alan Sepe, acting director of Providence’s Department of Public Property, to stop the school projects on Springfield Street, which were being constructed by the Cianci administration.
Superior Court Judge Edward C. Clifton found that the DEM properly evaluated the site and took the necessary steps to protect students from toxins in the ground. But he found the agency violated state law by not meeting “environmental equity” (to minorities and the poor) and community involvement requirements.
Clifton found the city failed to properly notify neighboring property owners and allow public participation in the siting process and violated the law by starting site work without DEM approval.
He disagreed with the plaintiff’s allegation that siting of the school was based on race.
“While plaintiff’s evidence proves that the process was rushed and even sloppily executed, there is insufficient evidence to support a finding that intent to discriminate was the driving force behind defendant’s actions,” Clifton wrote.
The judge ordered that all documents related to environmental hazards at the schools be made public, that all parents should be notified of environmental hazards in English and Spanish, and that summaries of nurses’ logs be made available each month. When future school sites are evaluated, he said, neighbors should be notified.
Several years later, similar issues arose as the city worked to build a new high school on Adelaide Avenue, using some of the 37-acre Gorham Manufacturing Co. site previously owned by Textron. This time, in 2006, the DEM sued the city.
In that case, Judge Daniel A. Procaccini ordered more work evaluating environmental hazards on the site, removal of a pile of hazardous slag and an eight-foot-high chainlink fence to keep people out of areas that remained polluted.
Last summer, the city opened the high school. But a few months later, the YMCA of Greater Providence dropped plans to build a $10-million facility next door. Delays and neighborhood concerns had driven up the costs, officials said.
Terrence Gray, DEM’s assistant director for air, water and compliance, says the DEM learned a lot in the course of the lawsuits.
With the Springfield Street schools, he said the city was moving very fast and the DEM mistakenly tried to work with the city’s timeline.
In the end, the DEM made sure the cleanup was done properly, he said, but it didn’t do a good job of involving the public.
“Our people tend to be more introverted engineers and scientists. So now we’re providing training in environmental justice and public outreach.
“A lot of people didn’t know who we were. We also learned we relied too much on the old media. We had to learn to use list serves and blogs. We now have a blog on environmental justice, though it doesn’t get a lot of viewers.”
Still, Gray is concerned about the long-term costs of maintaining the equipment to keep harmful vapors out of the schools. Will future administrations appreciate the importance of maintenance?
Textron says it is committed to resolving further environmental issues at the Gorham site with a goal of turning a large portion of the site into a public park. That would appear to provide the open space for Adelaide’s students to get out and run and play.
For more information and detailed environmental updates on the school sites, go to the Department of Environmental Management’s environmental justice Web site at: http://www.demenvironequity.net/Related links From DEM
The environmental justice coalition has started a Web site at http://www.ejlri.org/.
The following Rhode Island organizations helped organize the new Rhode Island Environmental Justice Coalition:
American Lung Association of Rhode Island
Childhood Lead Action Project
Environment Council of Rhode Island
Healthy Housing Collaborative (Rhode Island Department of Health)
Rhode Island Committee on Occupational Safety and Health
Rhode Island Diesel Pollution Initiative
Rhode Island Legal Services
Toxics Action Center
Toxics Information Project
Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council
Community Outreach Core, Brown University Superfund basic research program
Hartford Park Residents Association
Community Asthma Program, Hasbro Children’s Hospital
Sierra Club, Rhode Island Chapter
Direct Action for Rights and Equality
Family Life Center
Rhode Island HUD Tenant
Project
Adelaide High School
375 Adelaide Ave.
3 administrators
60 faculty
600 students
Built on contaminated industrial property, site of former Gorham Manufacturing Co.
Anthony Carnevale Elementary School
Springfield Street
1 administrator
101 faculty members
610 students
Built on former municipal landfill.
Springfield Middle School
152 Springfield St.
2 administrators
48 faculty
495 students
Built on former municipal landfill
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