[SSRI-Research] After Mercury Pollutes a Day Care Center, Everyone Points Elsewh

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[sSRI-Research] After Mercury Pollutes a Day Care Center,

Everyone Points Elsewhere

 

 

 

 

August 19, 2006

 

After Mercury Pollutes a Day Care Center, Everyone Points Elsewhere

 

By TINA KELLEY

 

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/19/nyregion/19mercury.html?ex=1313640000 & en=8236b\

6117282f2a0 & ei=5089 & partner=rss & emc=rss

 

FRANKLIN TOWNSHIP, N.J., Aug. 14 - Five days a week for two years,

parents in this rural township in southern New Jersey would drop off

their children, some as young as 8 months old, at Kiddie Kollege, a

day care center where these days wilted pansies go unattended outside

the locked front door.

 

But what the parents did not know was that the unattractive one-story

building, about 30 miles south of Philadelphia, was the site of a

former mercury thermometer factory and that their children, who spent

up to 10 hours a day there, were being exposed to what the State

Department of Environmental Protection described last month as

unacceptably high levels of mercury.

 

A third of the 60 children tested have shown abnormally high levels of

mercury in their systems. And while experts have said the levels of

mercury found in urine specimens are not high enough to indicate

health problems, they are high enough to require long-term monitoring,

and the ultimate health implications for the children may not be known

for years.

 

But what is clear, and what is now the subject of an investigation by

the state attorney general, is that the responsibility for cleaning up

and regulating the building slipped like quicksilver through the

fingers of state agencies, local officials and the building's owner,

who in February 2004 allowed Kiddie Kollege to open.

 

" I've had a lot of sleepless nights, and my wife cries on a daily

basis, " said Sean McCleery, whose two children, Autumn, 6, and

Tristan, 3, tested above normal and must continue to be monitored.

" You think you're doing the best you can to protect your children, and

it ends up in a heartbreaking situation. "

 

So while health experts are minimizing the long-term effects of the

contamination, that is little comfort to parents and the owner of

Kiddie Kollege, who closed the center on July 28, the day the state

determined that the building was not fit for occupancy.

 

For now, the state attorney general's office is investigating who was

responsible for allowing a building to open despite mercury vapor

levels at least 27 times the regulatory limit. Mercury, a naturally

occurring element, is toxic if inhaled or ingested. Symptoms of

mercury poisoning in children include insomnia, irritability, rashes

and peeling of hands and skin. Mercury vapors are heavier than air and

therefore more prevalent near the floor, where children nap and play.

 

A timeline released by the state's Department of Environmental

Protection describes how a series of missed opportunities and

incomplete communications over the past 12 years put children at risk.

 

Christopher M. Manganello, a lawyer in Pitman, N.J., who is

representing more than a dozen families, said: " As a pilot, you need a

chain of errors, not just one error, to cause a crash. If any one

error had not been made, this whole tragedy would not have occurred.

The ball got dropped. "

 

The first missed step came on Jan. 1, 1994, when Accutherm Inc. of

Williamsburg, Va., which made thermometers in the one-story building

here, closed after 10 years in business. Under state environmental

law, a company is required to clean up any spills or toxic materials

left behind, even if it files for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection, as

the company did in March 1994.

 

But Accutherm did not comply with the department's directive to clean

all the discharges of mercury and other toxic material at the site.

 

Bill Wolfe, the head of an environmental watchdog group and a former

policy adviser at the environmental agency, said the state should have

put a lien on the property and erected signs and fences around it to

notify neighbors about the possible hazards. The New Jersey Spill

Compensation and Control Act allows for the department to clean up

hazards left behind, then to charge the polluter three times the cost.

 

" That's where the breakdown initially occurred, " Mr. Wolfe said. " Had

that been addressed appropriately by D.E.P., all the other stuff would

not have occurred. "

 

Lisa P. Jackson, the commissioner of the environmental department,

conceded in an interview this week that the agency needed better

tracking of contaminated sites, clearer cleanup priorities and

stronger enforcement efforts. " This is an example when all three of

those kind of collide in a bad way, " she said. " It crystallizes some

of the things we need to do differently. "

 

But she said other people involved in the case needed to do similar

soul-searching. " I won't run from the fact that D.E.P. played a role

in this, but lots of other people did too, " she said. " And lots of

people are running to point fingers who need to be looked at really

closely. "

 

The building remained vacant until 2001, when a local realtor, Jim

Sullivan Jr., bought it for back taxes and began renovations. Mr.

Sullivan's lawyer, Richard M. Hluchan, said his client knew that the

building had once housed a thermometer factory, but thought it could

be developed because a 1996 report issued by the federal Environmental

Protection Agency said the site did not belong on the Superfund list

and was not eligible for a federal cleanup because it " does not

present an immediate threat to human health or the environment. "

 

In fact, only the state can issue a letter saying that cleanup

standards have been met. The federal determination simply meant that

hazards from the site were not reaching other properties.

 

But Mr. Hluchan said Mr. Sullivan also felt reassured because the

state environmental department never responded to a letter from Mr.

Sullivan's son addressed " To Whom it May Concern " requesting

information about any problems at the site.

 

Then in September 2003, a township construction official told the

state environmental department that the owner wanted to convert the

site to a day care center.

 

" N.J.D.E.P. informed the construction official that it was not

recommended to convert the site at that time, " according to the

department's timeline, because it had not been certified as cleaned

and ready for development.

 

But the mayor of Franklin Township, Dave Ferrucci, said his staff had

no memory of any such phone conversation, and had erroneously relied

on the federal report. In October 2003, Mr. Hluchan said, Mr. Sullivan

was considering selling the property and again asked the state

environmental department for public records about the site. But he

said Mr. Sullivan received only the 1996 report, which did not

accurately reflect the problems at the site.

 

Mr. Sullivan decided not to sell the property, and after the township

granted permits for renovations, a zoning permit and a certificate of

occupancy, he leased the building to Kiddie Kollege, which opened in 2004.

 

" We weren't told anything, we had no idea, " said Linda Turner, who was

a receptionist at the day care center and whose pregnant daughter,

Becky Baughman, owns the business. " I would not have even started to

work there and I'm sure she wouldn't put her child in there, " Ms.

Turner said.

 

Then, in 2005, the property was removed from the state environmental

agency's booklet of known contaminated sites along with about 1,800

other sites that were considered low priority because, as Commissioner

Jackson said, it was believed to be empty.

 

Still, as for allowing a day care center on the site, she said, " The

one decision that made this into a screaming emergency is not one we

made. "

 

On April 11 this year, while inspecting low-priority sites, the

department discovered that the child care center was operating in the

building.

 

Two weeks later, the state environmental department said it contacted

Mr. Sullivan to see if the site had been decontaminated, and according

to the timeline, he said the state had indicated there were no

problems there. But he was again referring to the 1996 federal report.

 

On July 28, tests that the state environmental department required

showed elevated levels of mercury vapor, and droplets of mercury were

later found in the basement and between the floor joists.

 

Some have questioned why the state did not close the day care center

as soon as the environmental agency discovered that mercury was

present, since officials knew that there was no letter certifying it

clean and ready for development. But Elaine Makatura, a spokeswoman

for the department, said that at that time it did not have test

results to confirm that the building was unsafe.

 

" In hindsight, in April, we could have shut it down regardless of home

rule, regardless of anything, " Ms. Makatura said.

 

Despite her department's failure to provide complete information about

hazards at the property, Ms. Jackson criticized local officials for

missing her agency's warning against allowing the day care site, and

spoke harshly of Mr. Sullivan.

 

" For the owner to have hired an attorney and basically say at this

point, 'Well, I sent an undated letter with no address and I figured

it was clean and consider that a level of diligence,' I don't know how

he sleeps at night, " she said.

 

The state's Division of Youth and Family Services, which licenses day

care centers, has also been criticized for not discovering the site on

the environmental department's public list of contaminated areas. But

Kate Bernyk, a spokeswoman, said the division was not required to

check that list, and is required to ensure only that day care centers

are free of lead, asbestos and radon gas, not mercury.

 

" We are already working with the Department of Environmental

Protection on how the two departments, along with other state and

local officials, can best share information to strengthen that safety

net, " she said.

 

Gov. Jon S. Corzine has formed a team of cabinet members from the

Departments of Health, Community Affairs, Labor, Environment, and

Children and Families, to discuss ways to prevent similar chains of

errors from endangering the public.

 

Robert Jenkins, 44, a diesel mechanic who lives across the highway

from the center, had considered sending his children there, but he

said that in the end he did not want them crossing the busy street.

 

" I fault the state and the township too, " Mr. Jenkins said. " The bad

thing about it is children are going to suffer. In the township,

everybody starts finger-pointing, but the children are going to suffer. "