A special-needs elementary school near the toxic Gowanus Canal in Brooklyn is the latest neighborhood property to be flagged for contaminated air, The Post has learned.
Traces of cancer-causing vapors and other hazardous substances — including benzene and xylene — were found in air and soil samplings of two buildings used by PS 372 on Carroll Street, records show.
The findings in the school’s annex around the corner at 219 1st St. — which serves kids as young as 3 and those undergoing occupational and physical therapy — are troubling enough that the state plans to install equipment there to remove harmful fumes by venting underground contaminants.
“While the levels in the indoor air do not pose a significantly increased health risk, some of the chemicals are exceeding levels that would typically be found in indoor air,” wrote the state Health Department’s Daniel Tucholski in a June 12 letter to Rev. Orlando Ruiz of Our Lady of Peace Church, which rents the buildings to the 3K-to-5 school.
As The Post first reported last month, the state Department of Environmental Conservation is investigating roughly 100 blocks in and around canal to determine how many are contaminated. Of the 626 properties targeted during the study’s first phase, 131 have been tested – and 21 had air levels of toxins above “acceptable” levels, including St. Mary Star of the Sea Church in Carroll Gardens where Al Capone got married.
PS 372 and Our Lady of Peace are just outside the study zone, but the school was tested anyway as a “proactive measure.”
The school will be hosting a virtual “town hall meeting” Monday where parents — who only learned of the danger two weeks ago in an end-of-school-year letter from the school’s principal — will get to ask DEC and DOH reps about the findings for the first time.
“What we’re looking to find out at this meeting is who’s responsible and how quickly [the state’s remediation work] can be done,” said one concerned parent.
The contaminants likely came from an on-site fuel leak discovered two decades ago or from a nearby Con Edison facility on Third Avenue with a long history of environmental problems, said Walter Hang, who heads an Ithaca, N.Y.-based environmental database firm Toxics Targeting.
On the east side of the canal, at PS 32 on Union Street, some parents there are fuming because vapors of a cancer-causing chemical, tetrachloroethene, were discovered in the main reception area, but the DEC insisted levels are serious enough to warrant any remediation work.
Daniel Bates, a NYC-based journalist who has a child at the school, accused the state of not taking the findings seriously.
“Given the extensive pollution that is literally on our doorstep and underneath our school, we need to be absolutely sure our school is safe,” he said.
A state Health Department spokesperson said “the data collected” at multiple sections of PS 32 “indicated no further action was needed.”
