I utterly agree with the trainer and plaintiff, Michelle Leahy, in Lulu Ramadan’s article “$185M verdict for toxic lights in WA school upheld by state’s high court” (Oct. 30, Instances Watchdog). Colleges’ bodily constructions can not comprise hazardous supplies, which might topic college students and lecturers to potential well being points.
Colleges are the infrastructure supporting our future generations and ought to be a haven in a capitalist society the place waste dominates. The Sky Valley Training Heart is one instance of how companies create sacrifice zones the place waste is revenue’s inevitable consequence. Monsanto, the producer that constructed the sunshine fixtures containing polychlorinated biphenyls, plans to combat the Washington Supreme Court docket’s resolution, highlighting how capitalism permits companies to think about folks and locations disposable. It refuses to confess wrongdoing and prioritizes revenue over folks’s lives.
I help Leahy’s name for each faculty in Washington to be examined for PCBs, as there are over 2,000 faculties constructed earlier than the federal government banned PCBs. Nonetheless, Washington will not be doing sufficient to guard communities from the destructive results of PCBs as a result of testing will not be obligatory, and solely three faculty districts have used the allotted funding.
To guard educators and college students, we’d like each a coverage motion and elevated public consciousness.
Nicole Strella, Seattle
