Soil Contamination At Former Site
In January 2001, the school remained closed for nearly two weeks after the end of the winter vacation when the DEP found high concentrations of lead, carcinogens and other toxins in the soil surrounding the building, as well as at the sports field across the street. It was soon revealed that the building had been constructed on the site of a previous toxic waste disposal ground in the 1950s. This was followed by claims that the school had seen unusually high rate of death among faculty members in their 50s due to cancer.
Crews took action to make the building as safe an environment as possible as classes commenced. However, residents voiced concern led to plans for the construction of a new building on a Dixwell Avenue site. The project began in September 2004 and the new Hamden Middle School was completed in time for the start of the 2006 school-year.
Read more about this topic: Hamden Middle School
Famous quotes containing the words soil and/or site:
“No person who examines and reflects, can avoid seeing that there is but one race of people on the earth, who differ from each other only according to the soil and the climate in which they live.”
—J.G. (John Gabriel)
“It is not menstrual blood per se which disturbs the imagination—unstanchable as that red flood may be—but rather the albumen in the blood, the uterine shreds, placental jellyfish of the female sea. This is the chthonian matrix from which we rose. We have an evolutionary revulsion from slime, our site of biologic origins. Every month, it is woman’s fate to face the abyss of time and being, the abyss which is herself.”
—Camille Paglia (b. 1947)