[CPEO-BIF] Examining the old Parker Street dump, New Bedford, Massachusetts

[Lenny Siegel <lsiegel@cpeo.org>]

Dreams dashed on contaminated land

Toxic legacy: Examining the old Parker Street dump

By BECKY W. EVANS
New Bedford Standard-Times (MA)
December 20, 2009


NEW BEDFORD - A Standard-Times photograph snapped at a groundbreaking 
ceremony for New Bedford High School on Jan. 17, 1970, captures the 
excitement surrounding the building of one of the state's largest and 
most modern high schools at that time.

Pictured in the photo are then Superintendent James R. Hayden, architect 
Owen F. Hackett, Jr. and then Mayor George Rogers. The men, dressed in 
overcoats, suits and hard hats, grin as they shovel dirt at the site, 
the former home of the city-owned Parker Street dump. The crowd of 
onlookers includes members of the School Committee at the time, among 
them: Vincent J. Worden, John M. Xifaras, Rose Ferreira and Albert A. 
Boucher.

The festive group did not know the property contained industrial ash 
loaded with excessive levels of PCBs and other toxic chemicals, which 
local manufacturing companies dumped at the site between the 1930s and 
the 1970s.

...


For the entire article, see
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091220/NEWS/912200322

See also the accompanying editorial at
http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20091220/OPINION/912200340/-1/NEWS


--


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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