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View report - PA Gotbaum: Legal Loophole Keeps Parents in the Dark on Environmental Cleanup of Schools
Shouldn't parents know if a school is being built on toxins? Public Advocate Betsy Gotbaum thinks so. Gotbaum wants to patch a loophole, she says, is puncturing the local school system - including Tech High School in Long Island City and the Robert Wagner School in Hunters Point.
Specifically, a recent report detailing a discrepancy in the Public Authorities Law (PAL), allows the School Construction Authority (SCA) to open education buildings on potentially contaminated grounds that could pose a health threat for school children.
When the SCA builds a new school on property it owns, state law requires that it submit a site plan to community board and give the City Council the opportunity to vote on the plan and conduct a public environmental review.
However, because of the ambiguity in the law, when a new school is being created on a leased site, these requirements do not apply. Even when there are known toxins present, there may be no public environmental review of the site, no opportunity for public feedback, and no Council oversight.
Gotbaum wants to change this.
She said the city is opening schools on leased sites that could be dangerous without City Council oversight.
Gotbaum stated the issue at hand is not whether or not schools in Queens necessarily pose an immediate threat. Her concern is to ensure that parents know when there is a potentially contaminated site. "Parents should have a right to know,” she said during a conference call with reporters last week. “Communities need to be notified."
With that idea she wants to pass a bill that will allow for clearness. That would be her subsequent step after drawing attention to the cause. Gotbaum insisted she would be able to close the hole in the system with the law.
She outlined her plans to do it.
Those included Council oversight of leased properties, having an outside consultant review the city's environment testing results, and availability of online public repositories that list contaminated school grounds.
Additionally, when the SCA leases an existing facility or constructs a new building, Gotbaum believes it should follow the rules by conducting a public environmental review.
"When it comes to our children's health, we can't afford to make poor decisions," she said. "State law must be amended to require a public process and environmental review of leased school sites."
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