I assume it's not on a well, so they won't be drinking the ground water. And unless they bring back penal labor and have them hammering rocks on-site, I don't see how kids could possibly be at risk, assuming the typical level of mitigation is done during construction.

This is a transparent attempt to derail the new facility, which will have the effect of mixing teenagers in with adult populations at King County Jail. These diversion programs are great and should be expanded (along with the rest of our social services), but it's complete fantasy to call for a world where no teenagers will ever have to be incarcerated for their safety or the safety of others.

Dan made this point better than I ever could last year: http://www.thestranger.com/blogs/slog/20…

what @1 said. What a non-story.

Staff could be at even greater risk because some of them will work there for years.

Everyone needs to be protected from this. Evict everyone in the zone if the stranger is so concerned

OK, so just build the thing down in Auburn. They've got lots of cheap land down there.

What the article didn't include is that the supposed mitigation plan uses an alternate standard considered acceptable for in places where there is limited human exposure and no one in residence - the same toxicity levels allowed in manholes and access tunnels. Those standards were never intended to cover inhabited buildings. It says outright in the environmental impact statement that the alternate standard is being used because there is no plan to remediate the site to exposure levels that are considered safe for habitation. What these folks are saying isn't any different from what the county said. The difference is that the citizens group thinks its a problem to do an end run around state environmental codes and the county doesn't.

Here's the deal: The bond issue specifically funded a new juvenile detention facility. The County Council can't just take that money and convert it to some sort of no-caged-youth utopia, no matter how long the activists hold their breath. It's either build the jail or give the taxpayers back their money.

So this is just a stupid delaying tactic, because the bureaucracy is smarter than those people who have suddenly discovered this "problem". And in a city where the almighty dollar reigns supreme, there is no way the Mayor or Council will want to set a precedent of stopping developments over some garden variety pollution.

But, like I said, just short circuit this whole idiotic ploy and build the damn thing down in south King County. That land in the CD is valuable real estate, polluted or not. They can run the family court out of the Kent justice facility.

I worked for the company that did the site work for the existing building. There were City inspectors on site every day to monitor the excavation with sniffers. Nothing was found to my knowledge, there was no evidence of dry cleaning residue because there wasn't a dry cleaning business within a mile of the place. Someone is full of ####.

Im not understanding this. From what I gather, everything possible and then some, is being done to be environmentally safe.
Are there certain people who dont want that facility there, creating the ruckus? NIMBY?
Are there background players pushing for doubt, in order to either buy that land as soon as its abandoned for the project, at cost, or has land for sale and wishes to profit if this goes sour?