Polluted school site in Danbury Connecticut

July 20, 2008 - In the month since the city announced the site of the new Roberts Street elementary school was polluted by "historic urban fill" -- rubble that contained unacceptable levels of lead, arsenic, mercury and other chemicals -- the public response has been muted.

"We really haven't gotten a call," Antonio Iadarola,Public Works director, said this week.

To bring attention to the situation, the city will hold a public meeting to explain the contamination and the city's response to it Monday at 7 p.m. in the Common Council Chambers at City Hall.

Ordinarily, the city might be content at the lack of public outcry over the problems at the site. But in this case, it needs the participation of the owners of 25 homes around the 7-acre playing field off Osborne Street where the city is building the $19 million school.

That's because when the city used the fill, perhaps a half-century ago, to build the playing field, it spread some of the fill onto the lawns of the adjoining properties. It wants to test the soil of those homes to learn the extent of pollution in their yards.

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