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Resident warns of radon risks in new high school plans during Salem school committee meeting
Summary
A longtime Salem resident urged officials to address radon in the planned new high school design, citing EPA guidance and a state report; he said the building committee has not yet discussed testing or mitigation and asked city councilors to act.
At the Nov. 3 Salem School Committee public comment period, resident Ray Jurislow said radon has been overlooked in planning for the new high school and urged officials to require testing and mitigation planning.
Jurislow said he had asked the building committee whether radon had been addressed and was told it had not. He cited U.S. EPA guidance and a state report on green and healthy schools that refers to radon more than 100 times, and said districts and designers should consider radon during design and construction rather than retrofit mitigation later.
“For a project that’s costing hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars, ignoring a known carcinogen is totally unacceptable,” Jurislow said, adding that retrofitting mitigation systems after construction would be more expensive and that taxpayers — not the consultants — would bear those costs.
Jurislow also noted Salem is in a high-risk EPA zone and that the proposed site is on granite ledge, which he said increases risk. He urged residents to contact city councilors about the issue.
The committee did not respond to Jurislow’s request during the Nov. 3 meeting; no building-committee or contractor response is recorded in the meeting transcript.
