Former Milwaukee school slated for Superfund cleanup

Maybe it looked like fun or a quick way to make a buck — climbing into an abandoned building to spray paint graffiti or scavenge metal parts for recycling.

But the vandals and thieves who frequented the former VE Carter School of Excellence on Milwaukee's north side may have exposed themselves to significant health hazards, according to a report by the Environmental Protection Agency.

The EPA on Monday will begin a hazardous materials cleanup of the building at 2001 W. Vliet St., where airborne asbestos in some rooms during an inspection was so thick "it looks like snow," the agency said.

"This is what happens with these old buildings when they lose a steward," said Kathy Halbur, on-scene coordinator for the EPA's Superfund Emergency Response Program, which focuses on incidents and properties that pose an immediate threat to human health or the environment.

"When people start destroying the building, they open themselves to exposure."

The work is projected to cost up to $423,356. But the city, which now owns the building, is not liable because it is being funded by the EPA.

Other contaminants and environmental risks in the building, which is surrounded by low-income housing, include flammable and corrosive chemicals, poisons, PCBs, lead, hazardous ash and mercury from switches and thermometers, according to the EPA documents. The friable, or airborne, asbestos in some rooms was four times the workplace limit allowed under federal workplace rules.

The contamination appears to be limited to the interior of the building; nothing was found in an adjacent playground, according to Halbur. But the building has been repeatedly vandalized, despite attempts by the city to secure it, and the site is continuing to deteriorate because of exposure to the weather. Failure to address it, the agency said, could result in an explosion or migration of the contaminants off the site, including into the sewer.

Asbestos is a known human carcinogen and may increase the risk of lung cancer and mesothelioma, according to the National Cancer Institute. Other materials on the site have been associated with cancers and other diseases.

Halbur said it was too soon to know how long the cleanup will take.

The original building, which was designated a historic site by the City of Milwaukee in 2014, was built in the late 1800s. Milwaukee Public Schools operated three schools on the site — McKinley, District 15 and Cold Spring Avenue — before selling it to VE Carter Development Corp., a now defunct charter school operator, in the 1990s.

VE Carter operated a school on the site until 2009, and a day care center until 2013 when a fire damaged the building.

The firm became delinquent on its taxes, owing $96,000 by the time the city foreclosed on the property last year.

The cleanup is the fourth Superfund removal project in Milwaukee in the last five years, but the first school building, according to Halbur. The agency is in the midst of a similar cleanup at a school in Kewaunee.

Milwaukee Public Schools has been under pressure for years from school choice advocates to sell its vacant and underused buildings to competing education providers. Among the criticisms is that MPS spends too much money to maintain the buildings. Lawmakers passed legislation to expedite those sales as part of the 2015-'17 biennial budget.