As reported in the Rochester Democrat and Chronicle:
The Rochester Board of Education has scheduled a special session to question state health and environmental officials about a factory-turned-schoolhouse whose owner has asked that it be declared a brownfield.
Board President Malik Evans stressed that the purpose of the meeting, slated for July 14 at 6 p.m. at the board’s downtown headquarters, is to learn more about the toxins at the site and not to take action on the Rochester School District’s future use of the building.
The district last year signed a 15-year lease on the building at 690 St. Paul St. [map], a former Bausch & Lomb factory, where it temporarily housed School 33 this school year and plans to have School 14 and the new Dr. Walter Cooper Academy share space for the next few years.
Evans said the board was unaware of any contamination concerns when it authorized the lease, noting that the site hosted a charter school between 2000 and 2005.
[...]
Word of the meeting comes two weeks after the board rejected by a vote of 5-to-2 a motion that sought to pull students out of the space immediately and stop the two schools from moving in this fall.
[...]
Environmental tests of the site conducted last summer revealed traces of trichloroethene [a/k/a Trichloroethylene] in the air, soil and groundwater.
Read more.
No related posts.