WolfeNotes.com

Toxic daycare appears located in an idyllic country setting  – but that’s an old landfill in the backyard (read on!)

Imagine the anguish of being told your child was exposed to cancer causing industrial chemicals while at daycare.

Our kids went to daycare, so I understand a parent’s concerns and fears – but our worst health fear for our kids was contraction of pink eye.

Yet, almost 3 years to the day after the tragic Kiddie Kollege episode where 60 toddlers were poisoned by mercury vapors while at daycare (see  NY Times “After Mercury Pollutes a Day Care Center, Everyone Points Elsewhere”) that’s exactly what another group of New Jersey parents were told last week.

And again, similar to the Kiddie Kollege case, (see NY Times “Memo Shows Agency Knew of Danger in Child Care Building“ ) the DEP knew or should have known and failed to take steps to prevent the problem or adequately warn parents.

So here we are again. We were disgusted but not surprised to learn that yet another toxic daycare center was discovered operating in NJ in Middlesex Boro. This is an intolerable situation – DEP must stop putting our kids at risk and engaging in crisis management, reacting to one scandal after another.

Last week, the local newspaper reported: New tests show elevated chemical vapor levels in Middlesex Borough preschool

MIDDLESEX BOROUGH – A second round of tests has confirmed the presence of elevated vapor levels of two chemicals inside a local church preschool, but not in amounts anywhere near enough to shut the facility, the borough’s environmental engineering firm has reported…. According to Ferguson, the latest air samples showed levels of TCE fumes at 16 micrograms per cubic meter in the preschool room at the church complex and 9.7 micrograms per cubic meter in the youth lounge. The findings for benzene fumes were eight micrograms per cubic meter in the preschool room and 13 micrograms per cubic meter in the youth lounge.

“These levels do not pose an adverse health risk,” said Ferguson. …

Mayor John Fuhrmann, who attended Monday night’s meeting, said he’s satisfied with the way the company is handling the tests, adding that he expects the firm to present a remediation proposal “as soon as possible.” 

Both Fuhrmann and Ferguson noted that the source of the vapors has not been determined, but said the firm is working to find that out.

Trichloroethylene is a common household cleaning solvent, often used as a degreaser, Ferguson said. It is odorless in the amounts found in Sadat’s air samples.

First, I suspected that the local reporter got badly spun, because right off the bat I knew that Mr. Ferguson was factually in error and was therefore misleading parents with his bogus claim that the levels posed no adverse health risk.

Here are some facts: The DEP indoor air level for benzene, a proven human carcinogen, is 2 microgram per cubic meter. The reported levels in this preschool are 13 micrograms, which is more than 6 times or  650% higher than DEP’s indoor air level.

The DEP indoor air level for TCE, a proven human carcinogen, is 3 micrograms per cubic meter. The reported levels are 16 micrograms, which is more than 5 times or at least 533% higher than DEP’s indoor air level. In August tests, the TCE levels were even higher (the reader can confirm this and read the complete DEP Vapor Intrusion Guidance document here).

Yes, these are DEP’s chronic indoor exposure levels, but there is great uncertainty regarding children’s health effects and exposure is completely preventable.

Children are particularly susceptible to the adverse health effects of cancer causing chemicals because their lungs are still under development; they have high inhalation rates relative to body mass, high lung surface area per body weight, low lung clearance rates, narrow lung airways, and immature immune systems. Children metabolize chemicals differently than adults and are far more vulnerable to chemical exposure than healthy adult males used to calculate most risk assessments.

The “acceptable risk” of a child’s exposure to industrial chemicals while at a daycare is ZERO (0) – “ND” or “non-detect”

Parents can refer to federal toxicological profiles of benzene and TCE here – the common sense bottom line is to minimize exposure:

“Living near gasoline fueling stations or hazardous waste sites may increase exposure to benzene. People are advised not to have their families play near fueling stations, manufacturing plants, or hazardous waste sites.“)

Second, I was baffled as to why a Mayor would be satisfied with this totally unacceptable situation.

Well, it turns out that the source of the problem is the Middlesex Boro landfill and/or underground gasoline storage tanks (UST) 100 feet or so from the day care center. So we now understand why the Mayor would have an incentive to minimize the problem.

Third, I was curious as to why a consultant that is known for the cleanup of hazardous waste sites was suggesting that common household cleaning compounds might be a source of the problem in the pre-school (and not the old landfill and USTs). These volatile organic industrial chemicals have poisoned soil and groundwater at hundreds of sites in New Jersey, including the indoor air of nearby buildings.

Well, in turns out that the consultant works for Middlesex Boro, who owns the liability for the landfill and UST problems, so again we now understand why the consultant’s first loyalty is to his client and why they too have professional and legal liability incentives to minimize the problem.

So I took a trip out there. I spoke with the day care center owner, toured the site, spoke with local officials and neighbors, and took some photographs.

What I saw confirmed my suspicions, so I filed OPRA requests with the Middlesex Boro clerk’s office and the DEP to get the data and smoking guns.

I also will send a letter to DEP Commissioner Mauriello that makes a series of recommendations, the most important being immediate installation of a subslab vapor recovery system at the day care center. If such a system is not installed immediately (less than 2 weeks) then the facility should be closed until a system is installed.(the letter is similar to Memo to DEP: Protect Kids – Enforce the Law

DEP recently oversaw installation of a system at Atlantic Highlands Elementary School, where indoor air levels were significantly lower than in this Middlesex preschool. (see: A Win for the Kids and Parents of Atlantic Highlands

US EPA installed a system in the Franklin Township Elementary School where, again, where levels were significant lower than in Middlesex.(see EPA Final Franklin Elementary School Presentation)

The children of Middlesex Boro deserve at least the same level of protection as that provided by DEP and EPA in other school settings.

More shoes to drop in this story, as we explain what went wrong, why it went wrong, and who is accountable.

Part II – Corzine daycare center reforms failed (Wednesday)

Part III – DEP ignored repeated warnings which led to tragedy (Thursday)

Part IV – What the case files say – (pending OPRA replies)

Part V – The solution installed – subslab vapor mitigation system (pending)

Part VI – Lessons learned and real reform agenda (pending)

groundwater pollution monitoring wells at perimeter of landfill almost in backyards of surrounding homes.

shotgun bearing troops in riot gear disrupt a Thomas Merton Center G 20 peaceful rally & march (9/25/09)

[Update 1 – I was 1 of the 50 who filed complaints w/CPRB – see: Protesters blast police response, Oakland arrests ]

[Update 2 – just learned that this was a National Special Security Event

[Update 3: 10/2/09  watch Democracy Now! segment

[Update 4: 11/1/11 – I just came across this video of the G 20 in Toronto in June 2010. Looks really bad. One police tactic I saw also used in Pittsburgh was when police (in full riot gear) marched in lockstep, aggressively towards protesters, while pounding their shields as they walked. It sickened me. I thought of Nazi Germany and Rome. – end updates]

My kids go to school in Pittsburgh, so on Thursday I headed out to see them and witness and participate in the G 20 Summit protests.

Because the G 20 Summit provides a world stage, I was there to warm of “climate destruction ahead” and to advocate for a substantive global warming agenda for the upcoming December Copenhagen Climate Conference negotiations.

But there are other major pressing economic policy  issues related to the need to regulate global finance in light of economic collapse, as well as to re-conceptualize global “free trade” and economic development frameworks to protect labor and promote economic and social justice.

riot gear clad troops push through crowd at a peaceful permitted G 20 protest rally

I was appalled by what I saw – and I’m obviously not talking about my kids. It sure looked different than the welcoming Pittsburgh I visited, photographed and posted here.

I’ve never been on the wrong end of a shotgun before. Face to face – it is not a good feeling.

Downtown Pittsburgh in military lockdown.

But that’s not nearly all I saw. There were the dogs, Humvee roadblocks, no pedestrian zones, downtown lockdown, fenced off areas, designated protest zone, hundreds (thousands?) of military troops, helicopters, constant overhead military aircraft (F-16’s?), chemical gases, and even – the first time ever deployed in the US – ear splitting sonic crowd control technology.

There were a handful of anarchists – some possibly prone to violence – among a few thousand peaceful protesters. Dozens of college students, observers, media, and everyday local people were included in the crowds that police indiscriminately controlled and managed as violent. (listen to this for police state tactics)

Overwhelmingly peaceful people were met by a massive show of militarized police force. Riot gear armored police and military troops significantly outnumbered protestors.

I personally witnessed provocative, intimidating and repressive military tactics I had imagined were limited to third world countries, not the freedom loving USA. I directly experienced this when a group of 15 or so military troops – in full riot gear – marched aggressively and directly through a crowd at the Merton Center Rally. The crowd was attending a peaceful permitted rally before a march.

University of Pittsburgh student has ideas

Small groups of anarchists – do these kids look scary to you?

I talked to several people, all of whom described similar examples of where police and military units initiated violence, precipitated violence, or severely over reacted to minor threats associated with overwhelmingly non-violent protests.

After I got home I viewed several YouTube videos of events that confirmed this overreaction – just do the Google and see for yourself. The tear gassing of University of Pittsburgh students looked particularly egregious.

This level of militarized intimidation is un-American and raises serious questions about constitutionally guaranteed rights of dissent and protest – free speech, association, and opportunity to petition government for redress of grievances.

These are not mere words to me – I believe strongly in them. I watched videos where the protestors appealed to military units to respect their constitutional rights, only to have the troops ignore them while arbitrarily declaring peaceful protest illegal assembly. The scenes were redolent of a police state.

Protestors were not allowed anywhere near where the G 20 Summit was held, so President Obama and world leaders were totally isolated and could not hear their voices or see their signs.

Iraq Veterans Against the War join peaceful protestors

And – of course – the media focus on police over-reaction and scattered minor property damage by a handful of anarchists totally obscures any public discussion of the policy agenda before the G 20 and world leaders – important issues are being ignored – watch “G 20 Summit in Pittsburgh Highlights Economic Decline of Former Steel Capital“.

shotgun toting riot control police confronts college student

In this time of economic collapse, accelerating global warming, and war, citizens engagement and protest needs to be valued and encouraged.

But when police state tactics intimidate protest and dissent and  media diversion squelches informed public discussion of critical issues, our Constitutional values are assaulted and necessary democratic pressure for reform is derailed.

As Frederick Douglass famously said: “Power concedes nothing without a fight – it never has and never will.”

military unit defends port-a-potties from peaceful protestors

canine unit troops and motorcycle cops intimidate peaceful protestors

Protestor reads from militasry and police training manuals to advise troops of non-violent and effective crowd control tactics.

Pittsburgh Welcomes the World – at lest that’s what the signs all said

Pitt students face off against armed troops

Military choppers monitor Pitt students – at least 3 copters continuously hovered over the city

Some police presence was respectful and appropriate – Pa. State Police (R) and City of Pittsburgh officer (L)

THIS is a REAL RIOT – Steeler Fans riot after Superbowl (Penguins Stanley Cup too)

Last week, we called on DEP Commissioner Mauriello to resolve a totally unacceptable situation in Atlantic Highlands.

Children there were being exposed to toxic chemical vapors seeping into their elementary school building, while the DEP failed to enforce the law and require the polluter to cleanup. (click here)

Parents had organized and were working with local school officials, but the polluter was dragging his feet. DEP failed to back local efforts by enforcing State cleanup laws to hold the polluter accountable. As a result, more cleanup delays ensued as the polluter was allowed to flout cleanup requirements. Children were needlessly exposed to toxic chemicals.

We are pleased to note that the organizing and hard work of a committed group of parents paid off – DEP just announced a cleanup agreement. Congratulations to those parents and kudos as well to local school officials.

Irene Kropp, DEP Assistant Commissioner for Site Remediation testifies before the Senate Environment Committee. Kropp was forced to defend DEP after several high profile botched cleanups.

Three years after DEP first learned of the problems at the school, DEP Assistant Commissioner Irene Kropp finally announced the following:

The DEP case manager attended a meeting at 1:00 PM with the Atlantic Highlands School Superintendent, his attorney and his consultant along with the potentially responsible party (PRP), his attorney and his consultant. The case manager called just minutes ago to advise me of the following:

The outstanding issues between the parties have been resolved;

The Atlantic Highlands School Board will formally approve the installation of the DEP-approved sub-slab vapor mitigation system at tomorrow’s Board meeting;

The PRP’s consultant will begin installing the system on September 21, with an anticipated completion date of October 16;

The system will be installed on a room-by-room basis while school is in session, however, the rooms undergoing installation will be closed for the entire school day;

The cafeteria/kitchen installation will take place between October 9 through 12, while the school is scheduled to be closed;

In light of these developments, we will not be preparing a formal response to Mr. Wolfe’s inquiry.

Please contact Assistant Director Ken Kloo, at 2-1251, if you have specific questions or need additional information.

Irene Kropp
Assistant Commissioner
Site Remediation Program
NJDEP

In a followup post, we will explain the larger context and target what caused the breakdowns – more analysis to follow after we read the fine print of the cleanup documents.

[Update: 10/07/09 – ANOTHER Tragedy: New tests show elevated chemical vapor levels in Middlesex Borough preschool what did DEP know and when did they know it? ~~~ end update]

Children attending Atlantic Highlands Elementary School are being exposed to toxic chemicals from a contaminated site across the street. Polluted groundwater from the site has migrated under the school building and toxic chemical vapors are seeping into the building. Levels detected in the school exceed DEP’s own safety levels. Science suggests that DEP’s levels may not be tough enough to protect young children.

DEP has known about the problem for over 3 YEARS and failed to enforce cleanup laws by mandating that the polluter install a cost effective and demonstrated technology called a sub slab depressurization system recommended by a national expert who has worked on similar cases across the country.

Amazingly, state officials have failed to learn the lesson of Kiddie Kollege, reported by the New York Times:

Memo Shows Agency Knew of Danger in Child Care Building

By TINA KELLEY

Published: September 1, 2006

The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection knew in 1994 that a building that later housed a Gloucester County day care center was so dangerous that state inspectors were instructed to use respirators when entering the building, according to an internal memo obtained by The New York Times yesterday.

But the site remained contaminated, and as far as the department knew, unoccupied, until inspectors visited it in April and found that Kiddie Kollege, a day care center serving children as young as 8 months old, was operating in the building. Yet the center, which is in Franklin Township, was allowed to remain open for more than three months, until state environmental investigators determined in late July that the site was still contaminated.” (read the complete story here)

The legislature quickly reponded to this tragedy by passing a law to protect children in day care centers and schools (read it here).

The new law directed the DEP to require complete cleanups at these sites, and mandated that the state Department of Health and Senior Services adopt indoor air standards to protect children, based on children’s higher sensitivity to chemicals. Governor Corzine signed the bill into law in January 2007 and issued a press release that said:

TRENTON – Governor Jon S. Corzine today signed legislation to help ensure that child care and educational facilities are environmentally safe for the children attending them.

“This bill will help identify and remediate educational facilities and child care centers located on environmentally high risk sites,” Governor Corzine said. “This puts New Jersey at the forefront of states nationally in protecting children from environmental contaminants while at child care facilities and schools.” (full release here)

The Department of Health has failed to comply with the Kiddie Kollege law and adopt mandated indoor air standards, which were required to be promulgated by July 2008, 18 months after the law’s passage.

Equally amazing is that the DHSS also has been aware of the situation in Atlantic Highlands and has advised – literally – to open the windows and prepare to abandon the school (read the DHSS 9/30/08 recommendations here)

• continue to ventilate the areas that were monitored to reduce the levels of  volatile compounds identified; 
• develop and implement a contingency plan to limit occupancy if conditions within the building change and levels increase in the sampled areas

Local school officials and a group of parents have been working for months on a solution. But they need the power of state law and DEP enforcement to back them up.

Yesterday, I wrote DEP Commissioner Mark Mauriello the following letter – let’s hope this gets resolved immediately. We will keep you posted.

Dear Commissioner:

For many months, the Department has known that children in the Atlantic Highlands elementary school (AHES) are being exposed to unsafe indoor toxic air pollutants that exceed DEP’s vapor intrusion (VI) guidance levels. 

As you know, the Department’s VI guidance levels for indoor air exposure are not based on children’s health risks, pharmacokinetics, and metabolism, as required by P.L. 2007, c.1 (AKA, the “Kiddie Kollege” law, which mandated that DHSS adopt such standards by July 2008), and therefore may not be adequately protective.

The AHES indoor air levels exceed levels that have triggered active indoor vapor mitigation systems in other NJ schools, such as the EPA Pohatcong Valley Superfund site in Franklin Township. The AHES levels also exceed those found in DEP’s oversight of vapor intrusion into homes from Dupont’s Pompton Lakes site (note health based screening level for TCE is 1 ug/m3), where active vapor recovery systems have been installed. They exceed protective science based risk levels by 30 to 3,000 times for TCE. The AHES subslab levels also exceed DEP VI groundwater and soil gas screening criteria.

A plume has migrated under the school building from a site across the street that is the suspected source of the problem. Groundwater standards and soil cleanup criteria are exceeded as well. While indoor air has been monitored, the Department approved remedial action at the site is not designed to reduce indoor air levels or protect children’s health.

Indoor air exceedences are for multiple parameters, but cumulative risks to children have not been quantified or considered as a basis for taking action to prevent needless ongoing toxic exposures of children while at school.

For several months now, an organized group of parents has chosen to work quietly and cooperatively with the DEP case manger and local schools officials  – they were led to believe that a sub-slab depressurization system would be installed BEFORE the start of this school year.

Unfortunately, DEP has not enforced cleanup laws and mandated that this system be installed.

As a result, parents are considering drastic action, including mounting an aggressive public campaign focused on the Department’s failure to protect their children and enforce cleanup laws (something, frankly, I’ve urged them to do many months ago. But they have chosen to work with the Department. But their patience is exhausted and they are feeling betrayed.)

I am giving you this heads up in hopes of preventing a train wreck and to try to secure what should be a fairly simple and cost effective remedy installed immediately.

Please direct your staff to issue a Spill Act Directive to the Responsible Party (with a compliance schedule and stipulated penalties). The Directive should order the revision of the remedial action workplan for the site to mandate that a sub-slab depressurization system needed to protect the health of children at AHES is installed immediately. In the event that the RP does not timely comply, the Department should be prepared to take emergency action and install the system.

Thank you.

Bill Wolfe, Director

NJ PEER (Public Employees for Environmental Responsibility)

*** Apologies – NJ.Com took down ALL the photos, which were originally published on my “NJ Voices” column at NJ.Com. I was able to save the text, but not the photos. What assholes.

Below is the post that got my blog banned by the Star Ledger on June 10, 2009.

So I thought it would be a good first post to use to launch my new blog, “WolfeNotes.com” .

That banned post illustrates the reasons that I blog and some of what I hope to accomplish. I try to combine serious ideas, visual images, and analysis to call out the bullshit I see in government, politics, and media every day.

I will focus primarily on environmental issues, not only because I love the natural world, but because the same forces that are destroying the environment also are responsible for our current accelerating economic and political collapse.

Hopefully, I will remain too controversial for the Star Ledger. And perhaps someday we all will recall that I.F. Stone famously said, “all governments lie“. Yet our media institutions have lost touch with that fundamental truth and not only fail to hold government accountable, but often accept government spin at face value, which then becomes the dominant narrative (conventional wisdom, or propaganda) .

But, lets not blame government per se. Scratch the surface of almost any government lie and you find a cover for corporate power and economic interests.

As political scientist Sheldon Wolin wrote in “Democracy Incorporated: Managed Democracy and the Specter of Inverted Totalitarianism” (excellent review here), our democratic institutions have been hijacked by corporate interests and our Republic transformed to a global empire.

And there is little indication that the Obama “change”  is anything more than rhetoric.

According to an interview with Wolin in Chris Hedges’s new book “Empire of Illusion: The End of Literacy and the Triumph of Spectacle” (Hedges interview here):

The basic systems are going to stay in place; they are too powerful to be challenged.” Wolin to me when I asked him about the Obama administration. “This is shown by the financial bailout. It does not bother with the structure at all. I don’t think Obama can take on the kind of military establishment we have developed. This is not to say that I do not admire him. …I think he is well meaning, but he inherits a system of constraints that make it very difficult to take on these major power configurations. I do not think he has the appetite for it in any ideological sense. The corporate structure is not going to be challenged. There has not been a word from him that would suggest an attempt to rethink the American imperium.”

So, this is the frame of reference I will try to apply to the more circumscribed world of NJ environmental issues and politics.

Let me know what you think – one of my aims is to spur dialogue.

(below is the text of the post at NJ.Com that got me banned there – the photos below the captions are lost)

Thrifty Individual Reducing Carbon FootPrint

“In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defense of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of the political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenseless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.”

George Orwell, “Politics and the English Language,” 1946
http://www.mtholyoke.edu/acad/intrel/orwell46.htm

Bill Wolfe Vacationing close to home – camping in public parks

(warning – graphic images on the flip -)

“The Detainee Photographic Records Protection Act of 2009″
http://gawker.com/5285064/yahoo-nukes-mans-photos-over-obama-comments

[Update: those Abu Ghraib images were what the Star Ledger editor refused to allow his readers to see.

Within 5 minutes of posting that link (with a graphic image warning to readers) the Editor called me at home and screamed at me, terminated my NJ Voices column, and took the post down.

So much for the so called “free press”.

Those images were published all over the world, but not in the US press.

Even worse, President Obama supported the bill sponsored by Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman and loathsome Sen. Graham (SC)) to amend the Freedom of Information Act to exempt certain military images from FOIA public disclosure (targeting the Abu Ghraib images, of course).

I wrote to criticize that outrageous and unconstitutional legislation. So much for my so called intellectual freedom and political rights.

And people wonder why I am angry and bitter. ~~~ end update]

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