Briarcliff High School and Middle School peeks out
from beyond the contaminated practice football field.
more than just we knew him,” Santiago says, commenting on how
remarkable and poised Demeropoulos was for a boy his age. “His
death was personal to us.”
Knowing what he does now
about the fields, Santiago sends
his son and daughter, ages 26 and
21, for check-ups with a physician twice a year. He says his
children’s school district always
kept in close contact with families
about the smallest of matters, like
the time the air conditioning shut
down at the elementary school.
“The kindergarten was sent
home,” he recalls. “That, they
HUFFINGTON
08.12.12
tell me about that. They don’t
tell me that apparently someone was dumping toxic materials
into a field.”
The Briarcliff fields Santiago
refers to are the result of a deal
the school district made with a
Yonkers-based company called
Whitney Trucking in 1998. In
exchange for allowing Whitney to
dispose of construction debris on
the school grounds, the company
built a practice field and a softball field for the school.
In the years that followed, “fill
for fields” deals became popular in
Westchester County and at least
three nearby districts participated
in agreements similar to Briarcliff’s arrangement. School documents show that in exchange for
SUDDEN
DEATH