DEP public affairs fax cover sheet, August 2002

NYC 9/11 Public Portal Document

AUG-07-2002 16:01 NYC D.E.P. PUBLIC AFFAIRS P.04/04

I Although the Board of Education had been planning on removing the carpet from the auditorium prior to these findings, no such replacement was planned for the auditorium’s upholstered seats or curtains. Concerned Stuyvesant Parents is now demanding a cotrpletc asbestos abatement for the auditorium. Additionally, CSP is asking that other areas of the building that contain carpets or curtains be tested and an abatement performed ifnecessary. Concerned Stuyvesant Parents is especially troubled fl»t fire presence of asbestos has been detected only after die completion of the school year. Before classes resumed in the building on October 9% parents had been assured by the Board of Education that the building had been thoroughly cleaned. Only later did parents learn that the ventilation ducts had never been cleaned. Later still was the revelation that the classroom ventilators had also never been cleaned. Then came the finding that the ventilation systems were heavily contaminated with lead. And now, only because parents independently paid for the tests, has asbestos been found. Along the way, the Parents’ Assn, retained a lawyer on a pro bono basis - Stuyv’esant alumnus Richard Ben Veniste, now of Mayer, Brown, Row & Maw in Washington, D.C, - and was preparing to sue the Board of Education before it acquiesced and agreed to clean the school over the summer. For these reasons, Concerned Stuyvesant Parents is also demanding drat upon corcqplction of all scheduled work, an independent contractor perform a con^lete suite of environmental tests on the school to assure the entire Stuyvesant Community that the building is safe. Concerned Stuyvesant Parents is an independent group of parents that have joined together to work on academic, environmental and other issues drat are of concern to the entire Stuyvesant High School cc y- *«*

TOTAL P.04 NYC-VVTC_000144517