[CPEO-BIF] New Bedford's (Massachusetts) West End

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

A gritty problem
New Bedford built schools, homes on old dump

By Beth Daley
Boston Globe Staff
August 16, 2009

NEW BEDFORD - Brenda Mattos's voice rises as she leads a toxic tour of 
her West End neighborhood.

A block away is the section of the high school lawn that tested high for 
probable cancer-causing chemicals in April. Behind her house is the tiny 
church whose expansion plans are on hold because the soil is so 
polluted. Next door? A vacant house, one of six the city bought in the 
last year because the property was so contaminated.

"It's everywhere around me," Mattos said as her 3-year-old son gleefully 
ran around her backyard, where a 2-foot-deep sinkhole mysteriously 
appeared in June. "I want out."

Part of Mattos's neighborhood stands atop a former 101-acre dump where 
so much garbage and industrial waste were burned through the 1950s that 
it left ash 12 feet deep in places. But it wasn't until workers broke 
ground for a new middle school five years ago that testing began in 
earnest to map the dump's footprint and the extent of toxic contamination.

...

For the entire article, see
http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/articles/2009/08/16/a_gritty_problem/

--


Lenny Siegel
Executive Director, Center for Public Environmental Oversight
a project of the Pacific Studies Center
278-A Hope St., Mountain View, CA 94041
Voice: 650/961-8918 or 650/969-1545
Fax: 650/961-8918
<lsiegel@cpeo.org>
http://www.cpeo.org



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