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June 1, 2011 - CT Child Daycare SAFER Program - Sharee M Rusnak presenter 860-509-7740
 

The Child Daycare SAFER Program was created to identify daycares where residual chemicals from past or present operations could pose an exposure concern to the children in the daycare. This was prompted because of a NJ case in 2006 where Kiddie Kollege Daycare was closed after it was found out they had moved into an old thermometer factory with high levels of mercury on site. Could this potentailly happen in CT? Yes.

Cities and towns are looking to reuse old sites for new purposes and there was no requirement for a past land use evaluation when a new daycare was going to move in. Until the SAFER Program was founded there was little or no comminication between the CT Dept. of Health and local daycare operations.

The pre-evaluation of site to be used for daycares is important because children are most vulnerable to environmental hazards: their bodies are still growing & developing, they play more intensly on the ground and generally have more hand-to-mouth contact - especially those 2 years and younger.

The SAFER program promotes the use of "Environmental Issues Referral Forms for Daycare Center Inspections" as a way to locate and identify potential impacts on the daycare children. The EOHA is rsponsible for the follow up on the form information. Things they try to identify are properties with past uses in factory/manuafacturing, agriculture or new locations with neighboring sites that could potentially be harmful. On new or current daycare sites look for "smoking guns" like: discarded drums or barrels; old cars or vehicle parts, dump sites and debris piles; old agricultural building or machinery; building locations that look like old factories or those that have old large door loading docks. Adjacent businesses that could possibly pose a threat could be things like dry-cleaners, salons, auto establishments or even copy/print shops.

ZEOs are asked to have applicants for new daycares to fill out the Environmental Reporting Forms and forward them to the SAFER Program. So far the programs has identified 1 daycare with elevated arsenic levels at the playground; 2 with possible groundwater issues and 5 with leaking UST. Daycares currently being investing include one in a former funeral home, one in an old auto paint store, two next to nail salons and 5 located near former industrial sites.

For more information check out www.ct.gov/dph and look up the Child Care SAFER Program and to access the reporting forms.