Gasoline Contamination Feared At PS 229

Parents of children at PS 229 in Maspeth learned late last month that petroleum from an old Getty gas station across the street had migrated underneath the school.
But the states Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) has known of the potentially hazardous leakage for yearsand school officials claim they only found out when a news report about the contamination surfaced last week.
State records show that in 1998, the Getty station at 67-25 Maurice Avenue closed down and its underground gasoline tanks were removeda process that revealed a leak of gasoline from one or more of the tanks into the surrounding soil.
The company hired by Getty to remove the tanks, Long Island-based Tyree Brothers, reported the leak to DEC and installed monitoring wells on the site and at the edge of PS 229s property.
Four years later, DEC says that petroleum has been found 18 feet below a portion of the school, but that no contamination in the school has been detected.
DEC spokesman Mike Fraser said that air monitoring of the school, done in conjunction with the state Department of Health, showed that there were "no vapors in the building" and added that "our soil sampling has not shown any detections [of contamination]."
Parents of PS 229 students have received a letter informing them of the matter, and the school held a meeting on November 20 to brief them on testing procedures and assure them that tests had come up negative.
PS 229 Principal Rita Silverman declined to comment on the issue, and District 24 Deputy Superintendent August Saccoccio did not respond to requests for an interview.
Kevin Ortiz, a spokesman for the citys Department of Education (DOE), said that his agency found out about the petroleum after CBS 2s Marcia Kramer reported on it in late November and "immediately dispatched crews to conduct testsfor hydrocarbons associated with 18 different gasoline contaminants."
Ortiz said the results showed that "there appears to be no health risk in or around the vicinity of the school."
Walter Hang, president of Toxics Targeting, a company that maps toxic sites, doubted that assessment.
Hang said that tests on PS 229s air were probably conducted using a photo ionization detector (PID), which checks for hazardous compounds in the air, as opposed to the more costly but thorough method of collecting air in canisters for lab testing.
"The PID is a very crude device," said Hang. "Using PID is not sufficient to identify cancer-causing agents in the school."
Ortiz said that testing "included but was not limited to" the canister method. DECs Fraser could only confirm that his agency used PID.
Fraser added that Getty would have to pay for the petroleum clean-up under New York States "polluter pays" law, and in the meantime would continue to monitor the petroleum with DEC oversight. Attempts to reach Getty were unsuccessful as of press time.
Theresa Ingenito feared for the health of her son, a fourth grader at PS 229.
"I dont think its safe at all," said Ingenito. "Its like ground zero. They say the air quality is good, but government agencies will tell you a lot of things that arent true."