Contact: Monique Harden
Advocates for Environmental Human Rights – 504-919-4590
Adam Babich
Tulane Environmental Law Clinic – 504-866-8200
NEW ORLEANS (August 3, 2015) – The Orleans Parish School Board (“OPSB”), the
Recovery School District (“RSD”), and companies contracted to handle, store, and dispose of contaminated soil on the Booker T. Washington School property will face federal court litigation if they do not comply with an environmental law governing the management of waste on the school property, according to a notice of intent to sue letter prepared by Advocates for Environmental Human Rights and the Tulane
Environmental Law Clinic on behalf of the Walter L. Cohen Alumni Association and the Sierra Club.
The RSD and OPSB plan to construct a new school on the Booker T. Washington School property, which is owned by the OPSB. Limited environmental tests reveal the school property is extensively contaminated with dangerous levels of arsenic, lead, mercury, other toxic heavy metals, and cancer-causing PAHs. The tests also show the soil contamination extends from the ground surface down to at least 15 feet, the lowest depth tested. According to the RSD and OPSB plan, at least 12 feet of the contaminated soil would remain on the property when the proposed school is constructed.
The extensive contamination on the Booker T. Washington School property is traced to its former use as a city waste disposal site, known as the Clio Street/Silver City Dump. From the
1890s to the 1930s, the City of New Orleans operated the dump, where more than 150 tons of waste were disposed on a daily basis. Beginning in the 1940s, the Booker T. Washington
High School, Calliope housing development, and Rosenwald Recreation Center were constructed specifically for African Americans on the Clio Street/Silver City Dump.
The plan by the RSD and OPSB to build a new school for predominantly African American students on the former waste dump would continue the history of racial injustice in New
Orleans, which has a pattern of building homes and schools for African Americans on toxic waste sites. Their plan is particularly disturbing because the students are to be relocated from

the Walter L. Cohen School building, which has no record of environmental contamination.
After spending more than $2 million renovating the Cohen campus post Katrina, the OPSB and RSD have offered no rationale for closing the Walter L. Cohen School building.
“To push forward with moving African American students from a school in a safe location to a new school planned on a toxic waste dump is environmental i njustice,” said Jim Raby,
President of the Walter L. Cohen Alumni Association. “We won’t let the RSD or the Orleans
Parish School Board trample on human rights or ignore environmental protection laws to put our children and their teachers at risk ,” he said.
According to the notice of intent to sue letter, the RSD, OPSB, and their contractors have failed to determine whether hazardous waste is on the Booker T. Washington School property, as required by the Resource Conservation and Recovery Act (“RCRA”), a federal environmental law. A violation of a RCRA requirement carries a substantial penalty of
$37,500 for each day the violation occurs. The letter also warns that the recent demolition and soil removal activities on the school property create an imminent and substantial endangerment to human health and the environment.
“This highlights the lack of respect the RSD has for the people of New Orleans and signals that not all is well ten years after Hurricane Katrina,” said Darryl Malek-Wiley, Senior
Organizing Representative of the Sierra Club.
View/download the RCRA Notice of Intent to Sue Letter at: http://www.tulane.edu/~telc/assets/Notice%20Letters/8-3-15_Booker_T_Washington_HS.pdf
Background information available at: http://www.ehumanrights.org
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