Reducing exposure to harmful materials, especially in younger children, can have lifelong health benefits. The Madison Health Department advertises a health education program that covers a wide variety of topics. They emphasize their mission of providing the necessary information, resources, and support to make healthy choices. The Toxicological Education Foundation has a more specific focus of environmental health. Understanding the environmental risks that schooling locations can have may be crucial to maintaining a healthy lifestyle.

Having an understanding of potential exposures to harmful substances, particularly for children, is absolutely crucial in maintaining one’s health and the prevention of disease, reproductive harm, etc. The map displayed here presents the most recent known pollution sites, generated by the NJ Office of GIS and the NJ Department of Community Affairs.

In Madison, potential exposure to pollutants in schools is relatively limited. There are only 21 known contaminated sites in the Borough, of which 18 are still active. In comparison to other municipalities of similar land area where the number of sites is over 100, this number is relatively minimal. The school location closest to a known contaminated site is FM Kirby Children’s Center, which is a private kindergarten. It is located 0.1 miles away from Well D of the Madison Borough Water Department, which is an active site.

Understanding the toxicological risks that may come with school attendance allows us to better understand the potential exposure to hazardous materials. Additionally, displaying the known contaminated sites and the school points side by side can help strengthen accountability and environmental policies, such as CERCLA, to protect people and reduce harmful exposure. Future work in toxicology can also consider the expansion of the  Right-to-Know Act, which requires local information about harmful sites.

Known contaminated site list for New Jersey (2023) was created by the NJDEP Bureau of GIS. The New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection (NJDEP) is a government agency that manages the state’s natural resources. The Bureau of GIS . The data layer shown in the map above is updated daily and distributed by the New Jersey Department of Environmental Protection Bureau of GIS. The dataset can be found online here. (NJ OFFICE OF GIS, NJ Department of Community Affairs, Bureau of GIS).