{"id":17949,"date":"2025-06-27T02:56:09","date_gmt":"2025-06-27T02:56:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/17949\/"},"modified":"2025-06-27T02:56:09","modified_gmt":"2025-06-27T02:56:09","slug":"philadelphias-schools-accused-of-failing-to-properly-inspect-asbestos-in-buildings-health","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/17949\/","title":{"rendered":"Philadelphia&#8217;s schools accused of failing to properly inspect asbestos in buildings | Health"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>PHILADELPHIA (AP) \u2014 Federal prosecutors on Thursday charged Philadelphia&#8217;s public schools with failing to properly inspect eight schools for damaged asbestos. The district agreed to have the criminal case deferred while a court keeps tabs on its response.<\/p>\n<p>Prosecutors said it was the first time a school district in the U.S. has faced such environmental criminal allegations.<\/p>\n<p>The district is charged with eight counts of violating the federal Toxic Substances Control Act for allegedly failing to perform inspections in a timely manner during a recent five-year period.<\/p>\n<p>Authorities said a judge must approve the terms of the deferred prosecution agreement, which avoids a grand jury indictment. If the school district complies with the relevant federal law, the government can eventually drop the charges.<\/p>\n<p>About 300 of the school district&#8217;s aging set of 339 buildings contain asbestos, the U.S. attorney&#8217;s office said in a release.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/article\/epa-trump-biden-asbestos-ban-ed91d880ca88522ea689165234df1afd\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">Asbestos<\/a>, a construction material in wide use until the 1980s, has been linked to cancer and lung disease.<\/p>\n<p>Investigators said some asbestos was improperly addressed and that <a href=\"https:\/\/apnews.com\/general-news-698332a00eadceeeb9ec46a5f993dd6e\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener\">schools have had to close<\/a> as a result of asbestos problems. Prosecutors said the \u201clongstanding and widespread problem\u201d put students and teachers in danger.<\/p>\n<p>The deferred prosecution agreement says the school system has already improved policies, procedures and compliance regarding asbestos inspections and abatement.<\/p>\n<p>Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. told The Philadelphia Inquirer the deferred prosecution agreement is a sign of the district&#8217;s progress in addressing the problem. He noted the district will train workers on asbestos management as part of the deal.<\/p>\n<p>This story has been corrected to delete a reference to a district paid monitor. The U.S. attorney\u2019s office says that is not a part of the deferred prosecution agreement.<\/p>\n<p>\n                <strong>Success!<\/strong> An email has been sent to <strong><\/strong> with a link to confirm list signup.\n            <\/p>\n<p>\n                <strong>Error!<\/strong> There was an error processing your request.\n            <\/p>\n<p>Copyright 2025 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed without permission.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"PHILADELPHIA (AP) \u2014 Federal prosecutors on Thursday charged Philadelphia&#8217;s public schools with failing to properly inspect eight schools&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":17950,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5132],"tags":[5229,407,57,210,4228,362,1448,2830,1311,17236,881,61,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-17949","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-philadelphia","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-education","10":"tag-general-news","11":"tag-health","12":"tag-indictments","13":"tag-legal-proceedings","14":"tag-pa","15":"tag-pennsylvania","16":"tag-philadelphia","17":"tag-philadelphia-schools-asbestos-charges","18":"tag-public-health","19":"tag-u-s-news","20":"tag-united-states","21":"tag-united-states-of-america","22":"tag-unitedstates","23":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","24":"tag-us","25":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114753082883643340","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17949\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/17950"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}