Students at Westbrook Middle School in Paramus Exposed to Dangerous Pesticides
When students, staff and faculty reported to West Brook Middle School in Paramus, New Jersey, they spent the 2006-07 school year as the unknowing victims of exposure to dangerous toxic pesticides.
Outside the middle school building, their daily view of the school property included a view of a large mound of soil covered by a tarp. What they didn’t know was that the soil was heavily contaminated by the pesticides aldrin, dieldrin and chlordane, chemicals banned by the EPA in the late 1980s. Since the school was built on a former celery farm, the pesticides, which remain in the active in the soil.
Janice Dime, Superintendent of the Paramus School District, as well as members of the Paramus School Board, were aware of the contamination for months. According to news articles published in the New Jersey Record, Dime and the School Board knew of the dangers as far back as December 2006. They claimed that independent testing showed no dangerous levels of the pesticide in the soil.
In May 2007, New Jersey Record reporter Michael Gartland broke the story of the contamination, when the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection showed levels of aldrin, dieldrin and chlordane at more than 39 times the state guidelines.
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