School Lab Legacy Chemicals A chronology Dave Waddell Local Haz Waste Mgmt in King County WA
1957 Sputnik Launched The U.S. panics
1960 Congress & NSF grants in response to Russian threat $4,000,000 for science education Sizeable chunk trickles down to secondary schools
1995 Wash. Dept. of Ecology launches School Sweeps Visits to community colleges includes labs Serious stockroom problems
1997 School Sweeps ends- lab training offered 2 high school lab teachers attend “That looks like my lab” Inspect their lab, saw this Make proposal we fix it
1998 Rehab the Lab launched in King County 100% cost coverage for disposal $300,000 initial budget for 3 years (later expanded)
2000 NAHMMA Boston Put on 1 st 8-hour training on school labs Attendees from 8 states Scared the snot out of them Each state began working on issue (Iowa ran amuck!)
2002 Rehab the Lab concludes $565,000 over 4 years 38.2 tons of chemicals removed 577 visits to 324 schools Bomb squad to over 40 schools Remember! –This is in one county
2005 NBC Nightly News coverage of issue Multiple states & EPA focusing on issue Hurricane Katrina plea for help mentions school lab chemicals