Angry Brooklyn parents are calling on Gov. Kathy Hochul to step down, alleging that her administration allowed their special needs elementary school children to spend more than two years breathing air tainted with carcinogenic chemicals near the polluted Gowanus Canal.
The PTA at PS 372 says families are furious over what they describe as the state’s inadequate response to contaminated indoor air at the school’s annex building at 219 First St. Recent air samples detected cancer-linked compounds, including benzene and xylene, seeping into the basement, parents said.
With the new school year less than three weeks away, families say they are deeply worried about whether their children will be safe returning to the building.
“We are outraged that New York State agencies under your leadership have failed to safeguard the school community from documented toxic chemical threats in our indoor air for two and a half years, even though those same agencies determined that soil vapor intrusion mitigation was mandated,” parents wrote to Hochul in a petition that had gathered more than 400 signatures as of Friday.
“If you cannot protect the children, faculty and staff of PS 372, you do not deserve to be Governor of New York State,” the petition states.
New York’s Department of Conservation and Department of Health have been assigned to oversee the cleanup at PS 372, which serves about 450 students.
Nassau County Executive Bruce Blakeman, a Republican candidate for New York governor, blasted Hochul over the situation, saying it was appalling that the health of young students had been ignored.
“It is horrifying that Kathy Hochul has forced pre-K and kindergarten children to breathe air contaminated with cancer-causing toxins for over two years while state agencies sat on their hands,” Blakeman said.
“Leaving our youngest, most vulnerable children in a toxic basement is an unforgivable betrayal.”
The DEC vowed to address the problem in March 2024, when air and soil sampling revealed alarming levels of toxic compounds seeping into the school.
A sub-slab depressurization system — a system of pipes and fans that removes harmful gases from beneath a building and vents them outside — wasn’t installed by the DEC until a year later.
Parents only learned this summer that toxins detected within the building remain above normal levels, even though DOE and DEC officials assure that it’s still safe for children and teachers to be inside.
In an Aug. 12 letter sent to school administrators, DEC officials said they are installing heat recovery ventilators for additional filtration — but a Friday notice revealed they won’t be installed by the time the school year starts.
Walter Hang, the president of Environmental Health Research Group, which leads toxic cleanup campaigns across the state, described the HRVs as “little vacuums” that replace dirty, warm air from inside the building with air from outside.
“This system isn’t designed to operate in this situation,” Hang said. “The only solution is to get rid of the pollution.”
The only way to get rid of that pollution, Hang explained, would be to dig up all the tainted soil from underneath the school’s foundation and in the surrounding area.
“This is just an unbelievable fiasco, and the governor’s got to explain why this problem hasn’t been solved and what she’s going to do about it,” Hang said.
“If she can’t protect public health and the environment by strictly enforcing all of the legal mandates, I don’t think she should be our governor.”
The Gowanus neighborhood has dozens of brownfield sites resulting from decades of soil and groundwater pollution from gas plants and oil refineries that once lined the waterway.
A Con Edison facility with a lengthy history of environmental problems sits right across the street from the school.
PS 372’s main building at 512 Carroll St. was the site of a petroleum spill in June 2004 that was never cleaned up, public records show.
The DEC didn’t find the source and recommended that a vapor barrier be installed to stop toxic chemicals from making their way into the school, but the barrier was never installed.
In 2024, soil and air samples from the annex and the main building revealed dangerous compounds were present at both sites, but officials only found the levels at the annex alarming enough to warrant intervention.
“It feels wildly unfair to families who are being expected to enroll their children in three weeks into this situation,” said parent Julia Finegan, who has kids going into pre-K and fifth grade at the school.
“I reject the idea that it’s too hard to clean up the contaminated soil under our school,” added Michelle Tsai, the parent who started the petition. “All of us are fighting for our kids’ health, and we’re not going to stop. What we need is for our leaders to fight for us.”
Finegan said she’s heard more and more parents considering removing their children from the school, but are worried that their children might not get the same quality of education elsewhere.
Many students at PS 372 are provided services and specialized plans to meet developmental, learning, physical and emotional disabilities. The school itself uses a unique model that integrates general education and special needs students in each classroom.
“Unfortunately the DOE does not provide a lot of opportunities like our school. We have a lot of families who need an inclusive classroom for their students and they don’t have anywhere else to go,” she said.
Neither the DEC nor representatives for Hochul, who shifted into campaign mode this week with a multimillion dollar ad blitz touting her record, returned The Post’s requests for comment. A recent Siena University poll showed Blakeman is closing in on her in the deep-blue state, with Hochul leading Blakeman just 49% to 39% among likely voters. Other right-leaning pollsters report an even tighter race, with Hochul’s lead only in the single digits.
In a statement to The Post, a DOE spokesperson said, “We are taking this issue seriously and are working closely with our state partners to ensure that the appropriate measures are in place to maintain a safe learning environment at P.S. 372 when we open on time for the 2026-27 school year.”
