Siegel—Soundview Visit1March 14, 2006
Visit to the Soundview Educational Campus
March 14, 2006
Lenny Siegel
On March 14, 2006, I visited the SoundviewEducational Campus, a recent brownfield development in the Bronx, New York. Since I have previously met with community activists about this site, this report will focus on new information. On this tour, I was hosted by Mary McKinney (Concerned Residents Organization), who lives directly across the street from the campus, and accompanied by Veronica Eady and Jaime Rivera of New York Lawyers for the Public Interest.
The Soundview Campus is located just East of the Bronx River and across the East River from (and in the flight path of) LaGuardia Airport. It is nestled into a corner of a former Loral manufacturing facility. The area to the east of the Loral property contains numerous high-rise apartment buildings. To the south is Soundview Park. Across the Bronx River to the west are a cement plant and what appears to be a dump or recycling center for large metal wastes. The property across from the front entrance, to the north, appears to be industrial.
This is a "poster-child" brownfield site, displaying visible blight and containing hidden contaminants. Particularly on week-ends, the large open area is used to park large industrial trucks.
The Soundview Campus, opened in 2004, is neither a neighborhood school nor a typical high school campus. The building is a brick box, with no visible outdoor plazas or athletic fields. It appears to be a magnet high school for gifted students, all or most of which are bused in from elsewhere. Neighbors have little contact with students or their parents.
As we walked along the sidewalk, Mary pointed out a grid of boxwood shrubs. She said they turned yellowish, apparently from toxic substances in the soil, soon after planting. We re-discussed the importance of vapor intrusion sampling in every ground-floor room.
Veronica said that the New York School Construction Authority avoided doing an environmental impact review by leasing, rather than buying, the site. I told her about a court case in which a federal judge found that for some environmental purposes, a long-term lease is tantamount to a transfer by deed. I also observed that the process of obtaining funding for school construction in New York creates pressures to avoid serious environmental investigation.
The larger problem, however, is the rest of the Loral site, which has a plume of volatile organic compounds flowing toward the rivers as well as extensive soil contamination with heavy metals. It's an obvious blight on the largely African-American neighborhood, yet little is being done to clean or redevelop the property.