It is not often community leaders and county officials admit to
mistakes and oversights. But in a press release sent by Montgomery
County Public Schools’ Public Information and Web Services Department on
Dec. 6, Interim Superintendent Larry A. Bowers issued a statement in
which he apologized to a concerned community for the county’s failure to
follow radon testing protocol in numerous cases where tests within MCPS
buildings showed elevated levels of the naturally occurring odorless
gas linked to lung cancer.
Bowers then announced, “out of an abundance of caution,” plans to
retest all schools and buildings within the county to set a new baseline
for future reference as the next step “to enhance our overall radon
testing and remediation program.” Results are scheduled to be posted on
the county’s website as soon as they are received.
Radon is a radioactive gas and exposure to it—which can only be
determined through testing—is the second leading cause of lung cancer in
America (14,000 deaths per year), according the Environmental
Protection Agency (EPA)....
...But some parents, such as Simona Haver whose son attends Springbrook
High School, are wondering why there would be no immediate mitigation
for buildings that have already revealed high levels of radon.
Haver, who admitted she’s begun to feel stonewalled by authorities
the more she inquires about her son’s safety, said an attempt was made
to comfort her by explaining that children only spend a limited time in
the affected classrooms.
“A person of authority told me, they’re only in one of those eight
rooms (in our school that showed elevated levels) for 47 minutes every
day,” Haver said. “I say, ‘OK, look, let’s look at this under a real
microscope. That’s 47 minutes a day, over the last four years, Monday
through Friday.’ That equates to 30 full days, 24 hours a day, seven
days a week. If you know, going into a facility, that it’s going to
cause you lung disease, would you go there for 30 days with the
probability? … It’s not a risk at this point, it’s a threat to my child,
to the staff and to the administrators.”...
http://towncourier.com/radon-testing-underway-in-all-mcps-schools/
These are not the only dangerous gases our kids and workers are exposed to. For an entire school year, a school bus that was filled with fumes and burnt gases that the kids had to breathe in (without adequate ventilation) was dispatched by the MCPS transportation officials. When notified, they made little effort to rectify the problem and the bus continued to emit toxic fumes inside the bus as it was picking up kids on the route. It took an inordinate time for them to repair the problem and replace the bus. They claimed that freon was burning inside the engine and being blown into the bus.
ReplyDeleteThe standard response from MCPS is to discount science and minimize the damage done to our growing kids from their negligence and inertia.
Is there going to be a class action suit based on the failure of MCPS to follow Radon testing and mitigation guidelines?