The lead remediation issue in the basement of Island Trees High School has been an ongoing issue in the district for several years. Clean-ups were completed as recently as early October and the district has continuously updated residents on its status. Still, few residents and board members are pressing the issue to declare the high school unsafe for occupancy.

According to a fact sheet made available to residents in 2006, the indoor rifle range was operated from 1957 until the 1980s. During that time, bullets were removed from the range and disposed of in the adjacent tunnels. A decision was made to close the range in June of 1994 and in the summer of 1999, the top five inches of sand was removed from the former rifle range. The sand, containing fragments of lead bullets and arrowheads used in the range, was spread on the floor of an adjacent pipe tunnel that is only accessible to custodial staff. It was later converted to art classrooms and a wrestling room in 2000.

Residents such as Lynn Sheehy say if the district had taken the correct measures when the rifle range in the basement of ITHS was closed in 1999 "none of this would have been necessary."

Island Trees Superintendent James Parla was hired in 2004. He said one of his first orders of business was to request to the board that the district hire an engineering firm and an attorney to "help us work our way through this and we did it immediately."

"We engaged the right people and we started working cooperatively with these agencies from the first day that I was here," he added.

"In terms of what caused this was prior to my time," he explained. "The sand and the lead were taken out of where the rifle range was and dumped underneath the school in the sand tunnel. That was done back in 1999. I inherited an issue but I've felt like I've handled it properly."

As for the cleanup time frame, Parla said "when we did the project back in 2004, the Department of Environmental Conservation [DEC] and the Department of Health [DOH] were on site when the work took place. We couldn't do the work until they approved the work plan. It was an unusual situation because of the location."

Extensive testing and the approval of a work plan by the DEC, NYSDOH and NCDOH have also been cited as reasons for the remediation time frame.

DEC Spokesperson Bill Fonda said, "Since the signing of the Order on Consent in March 2006, remediation efforts have moved forward." He also discussed the 2006 removal of over 75 tons of sand in the basement of ITHS. According to Fonda, there is still some that needs to be cleaned up.

"Lead, because the nature of it, was dispersed throughout the whole range," he said. "When we cleaned it up we did hundreds and hundreds of samples. We came back and we had it down to a hard dirt surface. We vacuumed the material up. We did samples and we resampled. When we left it met our standards. Since then there has been additional sampling that has shown some higher types of contamination and there is evidently more work that needs to be done in that place."

According to Fonda, the DEC will oversee and enforce any necessary additional cleanup at the high school.

Fonda said that ITHS is not and never has been declared a hazardous waste site by the DEC. If it were, it would have to be on the registry of hazardous waste sites.

"It was an option we looked at at one point in time, but we never listed it on the registry," he added. "DEC staff from Solid and Hazardous Materials and from the Division of Environmental Remediation did discuss this issue. Ultimately it was determined that the violations that the school had were Resource Conservation Recovery Act [RCRA] violations and these violations were addressed through the Consent Order DEC and the school district negotiated."

Some residents were confused about an Environmental Protection Agency [EPA] reference identification number assigned to the high school by the EPA and DEC - NYR000140764.

"Facilities that generate hazardous waste or have a one time cleanup are required to obtain from the EPA an identification number," Fonda explained.

There are three classifications of facilities: Conditionally Exempt, Small Quantity Generator or Large Quantity Generator. Island Trees High School is designated a Large Quantity Generator.

An Oct. 23 letter to Superintendent Parla from EPA Specialist 3 Kate Murphy identifies several hazardous waste violations that remain outstanding. These include disposal of fluorescent lamps, providing documents relating to hazardous waste management and the requirement of a contingency plan to minimize hazards to human health or the environment from fires, explosions or any unplanned sudden or non-sudden release of hazardous waste.

"We have people still in place who assure us that our students' safety is their priority and yet those same people have not yet complied with DEC guidelines and currently stand in violation of those guidelines since 2004," said Sheehy, whose child is a freshman at ITHS.

Superintendent Parla told the Tribune that the district has had the proper program in place to dispose of fluorescent light bulbs.

"We're providing all the documentation," he added. "They [the company contracted by the district] have manifests for every one of our buildings that they've picked up fluorescent bulbs."

In regard to the staff training violation, Parla said the "district provides training to faculty in staff in terms of Right-to-Know." Right-to-Know laws provide information about possible chemical exposures and were enacted by Congress in 1986.

"However it's not clear to us what kind of training the DEC is looking for," he added. "If we need to train certain staff members with additional training, then we'll comply. We're looking into that now."

Addressing the safety plan violation, Parla said the "district has an emergency management plan which we are required to have under the law."

"It appears that additional information has to be amended to that plan for the high school," Parla added. "We are in the process of doing that and we hired J.R. Holzmacher [environmental engineer], to add that section of the plan."

According to School Board Member Robert Condela, the district has also hired an environmental lawyer to assist them in addressing these violations.

"The district's decision to hire an environmental attorney was also a source of frustration to the Department," Fonda responded.

According to an August presentation made by the DEC and NYSDOH to the district, a general cleaning of the school was performed during the summer at the recommendation of the EPA. Several areas were remediated for lead. Confirmatory soil samples were collected. Verification samples were collected in the pipe tunnel with up to 21,200 ppm [parts per million] lead detected in one composite sample well above the 400 ppm cleanup goal. The DEC, the state and county health departments and the school district conducted supplemental sampling on Aug. 20 in the main pipe tunnel to confirm the recent verification sampling results.

According to the DEC, the Aug. 20 samples were collected as close as possible to the approximate locations for the soils that were used for two earlier composite soil samples.

"However, DEC believes that the residual lead may not be uniformly distributed in the pipe tunnels. This can result in unrepresented results if the small portion of the sampling material that the laboratory arbitrarily selects for analysis should happen to contain a small piece of lead," a document provided by Fonda states. "The discrete sampling identifies the exact areas with elevated lead and can be used to make decisions on which areas may require further remediation. Our results do show that some work still needs to be done since a number of the samples exceed the 400 ppm cleanup objective."

According to the DEC, two plastic sheets temporarily prevent potential exposures, and any further actions will be implemented during the summer of 2009.

"We also have a double lock system so that the sand tunnel is locked down," Superintendent Parla added. "The only way that door could open is if the director of facilities and the head custodian are both present. They both have different keys."

New York State Education Department relies on its sister agency, the DOH for health guidance. An Aug. 27 letter from the NYSDOH to Carl T. Thurnau, director of facilities at the NYSED, recommends the sand tunnels be encapsulated. He said his agency has been involved with the district and coordinated with the DEC and NYSDOH on this issue.

"The district is under consent from DEC and is subject to DEC regulation," he said. "They [DEC] have indicated that encapsulation poses the least risk for occupants of the facility by limiting the potential for re-contamination from dust as a result of further lead soil removal. We have the ability to assist the district with capital funding if they choose to encapsulate. NYSED has jurisdiction over capital projects at schools and will work to help the school encapsulate the contamination if that is the direction the board chooses to resolve the lead contamination. This would require a modification of the DEC order."

Island Trees resident Brian Kelty removed his children from ITHS due to the lead issue and has spent countless hours investigating this matter. He said that modifying the DEC order would allow the sand to remain on site and called Thurnau's comment "ludicrous."

Currently there are art, robotics and wrestling rooms in use in the ITHS basement. According to Parla, the art and wrestling rooms have been tested as late as July and "we didn't get any [lead] readings."

Some residents have suggested moving these rooms to other parts of the building.

"It's not that easy," Parla said. "We put a plan together but the board did not come to any definitive decision on it yet. It's not like the DOH or the DEC is suggesting it."

An August letter from NYSDOH Section Chief Donald W. Miles states, "based on our understanding of the work accomplished by the school district and the sampling conducted by the agencies, the lead problems should not prevent the staff and students from using the building as normal when the school year starts."

A Sept. 11 letter from Miles to Superintendent Parla reiterates, "the lead problem should not prevent the staff and students from using the public areas of the building."

Parla added that the EPA and the NCDOH attended two August board meetings and publicly stated, "there is no lead exposure hazard at Island Trees High School and that there is no reason that the school shouldn't open and function as it normally does."

Fonda said the DEC is "obviously disappointed that residual contamination remains in the school."

"We are however, heartened by the fact that public health agencies have reiterated their position that the lead problem should not prevent the staff and students from using public areas of the building, and that public health agencies say there are no health risks from the use of the building," he added.

Island Trees Board of Education Member Joseph Buda, who has two children enrolled at ITHS, disagrees.

"Not one piece of paper says the school is safe," claims Buda. "All it says is that the school can be occupied. Nowhere does it say safe. The school should be closed down."

Buda said he feels the walls need to be "shaved down" to completely remove the lead.

"I spoke to someone out east who has an engineering company...and he told me this was the only way for it to be properly done," he added.

Both of Buda's daughters had art classes in the basement on the first day and Buda pulled them out of those classes.

"I do not know if it's definitely going to make the kids sick on the first and second floor but nobody can say definitely that it won't," he added.

When asked why he thought the abovementioned agencies would allow the school to remain open, Buda said it was a "conspiracy" and said "all the document I have; everybody knew about this."

"Why would they give a school four years to fix a problem where it's contaminated?" he questioned.

"Everything we've done, we've done with the okay and the backing of the agencies," Board Member Peter Ray said. "If one of those agencies had told us that the school was unsafe, we would've closed the school with no problem."

The Island Trees Board of Education has approved the formation of a committee to review the lead issue associated with the high school.

The committee will be asked to gather the facts and present a report to the board of education. The committee will consist of members of the district's bargaining units, the PTSA, board members and members of the community. The board would like to appoint four community members to the committee.

The board has also scheduled a public meeting to discuss the formation of the committee for Wednesday, Dec. 10 at 7 p.m. in the Board Room of the Gallow School.

"The DEC would have preferred the district was more focused following the Department's issuing of a Notice of Violation," DEC Spokesperson Fonda said.

If interested in being appointed to this committee, send a letter of interest, by Dec. 8 to: Mrs. Concetta Carr, District Clerk, Island Trees Union Free School District, 74 Farmedge Rd., Levittown, NY 11756. The committee will commence its work shortly after the holidays.