For the second time since the DeKalb County Board approved the landfill expansion application for Waste Management of Illinois there has been an incident potentially related to the existing dump at the elementary school less than one-half mile away.
According to public accounts Cortland Elementary School students and staff were exposed to a landfill gas or bad smell. At least 63 were transported by ambulances from the school to Kishwaukee Community Hospital. Various parents reported on Facebook accounts that their children experienced symptoms including headaches, nausea, dizziness, sore throats or nose bleeds.
DeKalb District 428 Superintendent James Briscoe told media that Waste Management crews replacing pipes released methane into the air and the wind carried it to the school. According to a Daily Chronicle report, “A Waste Management spokesperson says crews doing routine drilling work punctured a pocket in the landfill filled with old trash, releasing gas with a heavy, sour odor that the wind carried to Cortland Elementary School.”
According to reports school crews noticed the odor just before 10am Tuesday Jan. 15 and notified Waste Management officials.
The Cortland Elementary School principal issued a statement on District 428’s website that said, “As a precautionary measure we did transport some students and staff to the hospital that were feeling sick. Again we want to reassure everyone is safe and we look forward to school tomorrow.”
School is in regular session today.
In June 2010, shortly after the new elementary school was opened and an application for a major expansion of the nearby landfill was approved there was an incident of hydrogen sulfide gas (H2S) detected at measurable levels at three locations inside Cortland Elementary School. The toxic gas was present at a much stronger level just outside of the school. The source of the gas was never determined.
Mark Pietrowski, who represents County Board District 3, which encompasses the school, landfill and the town of Cortland told Facebook readers that he had contacted the Mayor of Cortland, County Board Chairman, elected officials and residents Tuesday night about the incident that happened at the Cortland Elementary School today. Waste Management still has many questions to answer and was dedicated to finding answers.
The Illinois EPA has not announced whether it has approved the permit for Waste Management to begin the expansion of the landfill. It is vitally important that as much of the events and circumstances of this incident be put on public record. It’s through sunshine and transparency that proper protection be afforded to address the challenges associated with the close proximity of a landfill and an elementary school in a residential subdivision.
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Waste Management reports that none of their onsite detectors were positive for methane, hydrogen sulfide, or carbon monoxide. Then the Chief Medical Director for KishHealth comes forward stating all of the symptoms were due to carbon monoxide exposure, without any evidence to support this assertion.
Both James Briscoe and the Daily Chronicle report that Waste Management was “replacing pipes” on the day of the incident, but this narrative quickly changes to “digging in a pocket of old trash” that released the smell. Like a child saying they didn’t eat the birthday cake, with frosting still smeared all over their face.
For anyone who thinks some white-coat from the Environmental Protection Agency is going to get their hands dirty and dig up the truth – dream on. One only needs to look up the EPA’s history of “protecting” the public from water fluoridation to know who they are really protecting.
Enough evidence exists to show that children of Cortland Elementary are at risk for being exposed to hydrogen sulfide, methane, carbon monoxide, as well as other airborne contaminants. Monitoring for these contaminants has proven to be unreliable, incomplete, and prone to human error.
Under the circumstances, concerned parents are not going to believe the reassurances of local officials and they should be allowed to bus their children to surrounding schools. Alternately, if some type of air filtration can be retrofitted to the existing to school, this option should be looked at immediately.
Anyone seeking to blame Dekalb School Board for the siting of Cortland Elementary needs to realize they are not, nor have they even been “experts” in environmental science. Looking to the Dekalb County Board, the environmental consultants, and their history of bribe and gag politics might provide a clearer picture of who to blame. These are the people who new better, or should have known better, and looked the other way allowing political convenience and money to trump good decision making.
Ultimately, central planning lies in the hands of the Dekalb County Board, and they need to be careful about who they “consult” when making decisions about environmental issues. They also need to allow open discussion about the issues during the decision making process, or be faced with recurrent problems such as the one we face here.