"Digging up the Past"

"NEW BEDFORD — The Parker Street dump was a household name in the 1930s, 1940s and 1950s, especially for residents living in the growing West End neighborhood. ...While children used the Parker Street dump as a playground, teenagers and adults held bonfires there before football games and on the 4th of July. They were unaware that the dump ash beneath their feet contained potentially cancer-causing PCBs, the manufacture of which would be banned by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1979. ...In 1968, school and city officials, under Mayor Edward F. Harrington's administration, voted to build a 500,000-square-foot high school at the former Parker Street dump. They were ignorant of the site's public health threats."Becky W. Evans reports for South Coast Today December 13, 2009.