[menudo]

Cross posting from Vax forum:

http://www.mothering.com/discussions...d.php?t=495100

http://www.nj.com/news/gloucester/in...730.xml&coll=8

Quote:

A Delsea Drive day care center for 30 youths has been closed after air monitoring samples showed the presence of elevated levels of mercury. The Kiddie Kollege center - for children ages 8 months to 13 years old - has been operating since January 2004 in a site formerly used to manufacture thermometers.

Quote:

On Monday, a search of the building's basement revealed actual silver beads of mercury, Frank said.

Quote:

"My head is spinning right now," offered Chuck Todano, a parent of a 4-year-old former Kiddie Kollege student. Todano said his son has been diagnosed as autistic. "Is it autism or mercury poisoning?" he asked.

http://www.nj.com/news/gloucester/in...530.xml&coll=8

 

[Ruthla]

That link to "the vax forum" is actually to the BF forum on a totally unrelated topic.

The link to the article doesn't work either.

How scary and sad that a daycare center was operating in such an unsafe place.

 

[LizaBear]

The link to the article does work - just click on the "outside of the USA" link on the splash page.

SCARY stuff though.

Here's another article : http://www.commondreams.org/news2006/0807-01.htm

 

[menudo]

Wanna know what is odd? I have never seen that lactivism thread I linked?!

:

Fixing now.

 

[Marco Esquandolas]

vax links works and LizaBear link works. scary and sad stuff, mamas and papas. Thanks for cross-posting this!

We should stay on Corzine to follow thru on this. These parents must be absolutely freaked out.

 

[DebraBaker]

This was on our local news.

I am shocked and chilled that a daycare could be built on a toxic site.

Praying those children are free of mercury.

 

[JessicaS]

That is horrible!!

 

[MountainLaurel]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bebesho2 Cross posting from Vax forum: http://www.mothering.com/discussions...d.php?t=495100 http://www.nj.com/news/gloucester/in...730.xml&coll=8

Does anyone else remember the uproar a few years ago in LA when the school district was planning to build a high school on a former Superfund site?

 

[menudo]

Geez-I live near many Superfund sites here in NJ. They can barely build around them. There is a Christian school on a "former" (HA!) superfund site here too-no lie.

Actually, my neighborhood is not one BUT I learned msot of it is on a former illegal dump from the 30's-50's-old washers, etc...

 

[artgoddess]

Quote:

Originally Posted by MountainLaurel Does anyone else remember the uproar a few years ago in LA when the school district was planning to build a high school on a former Superfund site?

I remember that. I live in LA, it was Belmont high school, which was one of the most run down in trouble schools there are in the poorest section of town. It really needed to be rebuilt, just not on a toxic dump.

Re the mercury/daycare story, I cannot fathom, how incredibly horrible.

 

[Tanibani]

What an outrage.

More links:

http://www.state.nj.us/lps/newsrelea...20060803b.html

Quote:

Said Attorney General Farber, "It is hard to fathom how this could have happened, but we are committed to finding out how, and to holding the responsible parties accountable."

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/n...y/15224045.htm

Quote:

The DEP also will hold an informational meeting in Franklin Township tomorrow. Smierciak said yesterday that she had not yet decided whether to hire a lawyer and was unsure whether her daughter had been affected by the mercury. But she remembered once finding a bead of mercury on her daughter's backpack. "I wondered what it was. My husband, George, looked at it and said it was mercury, but it couldn't be. How could it be?" she said. "It's a poison."

From an article 2 days ago:

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/n...rer_new_jersey

Quote:

Linda Turner, who worked at Kiddie Kollege and is the mother of owner Becky Baughman, said the center's records remained locked inside the sealed building, making it impossible to contact former clients. She said Baughman, who is pregnant, was too upset to be interviewed. The thermometer company, Accutherm Inc. of Williamsburg, Va., went bankrupt in 1994, DEP spokeswoman Elaine Makatura said. In 1995, the DEP ordered the company to clean up any residual mercury at the site, Makatura said. She said the DEP was investigating whether it ever checked the cleanup. State officials later referred the case to the federal Environmental Protection Agency, where officials could not immediately be contacted for comment. The building sat empty for seven years, until it was bought by the Navillus Group L.L.C. in 2001 for about $44,000 in back taxes. One year later, the deed was transferred for $1 to Jim Sullivan Inc., a real estate company headquartered across the street from the former factory. A man named James W. Sullivan 3d was a principal in the Navillus Group, according to the property records. Makatura said Jim Sullivan Inc. "knew who the former owner was and what the former owner manufactured." James W. Sullivan 3d did not return multiple phone calls. Workers hired by the state to test the property July 14 were stunned to discover it was occupied. "We didn't even know there was a day-care center that had set up shop there," Makatura said. "We believed it was abandoned. We don't know how this occurred."

Honestly, I blame the property-owner/realtor. They knew. I doubt very much the owner of Kiddie Kollege was told who the former owner of the property was.

 

[Danelle78]

 

[boingo82]

I lived on a superfund site for 7 years in childhood...

Anyway, apparently it wasn't built on contaminated land, it was inside the ACTUAL factory building if I understand those articles.

:

 

[dingogirl]

Quote:

Seven weeks after the mercury-contaminated Kiddie Kollege day-care center closed, a 5-year-old Franklin Township girl still has seizures, unexplained rashes, mysterious illnesses and peeling skin on her fingers and toes, which her attorney says are linked to inhaling the toxic metal. The girl is among at least a dozen Kiddie Kollege children who still have elevated levels of mercury in their bodies, according to results of a second round of medical tests that were released in recent days to parents.

http://www.philly.com/mld/inquirer/15522061.htm

 

[Llyra]

Quote:

Originally Posted by bebesho2 Geez-I live near many Superfund sites here in NJ. They can barely build around them. There is a Christian school on a "former" (HA!) superfund site here too-no lie.

Gotta love Jersey, eh? Worst water pollution in the country, most Superfund sites... Just living here in the first place makes you high-risk for cancer. You can't hardly turn around without running into a Superfund site. The mall I shopped at as a kid was built on one...

 

[umsami]

That is so scary. Those parents must be freaking out.

I know in NYC, we're required to have blood-lead tests at 1 and 2 years...does that hold for other states as well??