A former PS 51 teacher plans to file a lawsuit against the Department of Education, claiming that working in the toxic Bedford Park building that used to house the school was the cause of a birth defect in her unborn baby, the Daily News reports today.
This summer, The DOE told parents and staff at PS 51, also known as the Bronx New School, that the Jerome Avenue building tested positive for high levels of trichloroethylene (TCE), a chemical the Environmental Protection Agency says can cause health problems in humans. Nancy Tomassi, who filed the legal papers this week, worked at the school for five years. She was forced to terminate her pregnancy in October after her baby was found to have an unsurvivable brain defect.
Tomassi is the second person to file claims over the discovery of toxins’ at the school. The Riverdale Press reported last week that a former PS 51 aide, Rhonda Rivera, filed a suit against the buildings’ current and former owners, saying chemicals at the site gave her cancer.
The city started leasing the Jerome Avenue building for the school in 1991, but only started testing leased school sites in 2002, and then only began doing so as their leases were up for renewal.
At the start of the school year this fall, the Bronx New School moved to another building in Crotona.
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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.
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