Juan Gonzalez

The air at a North Bronx school may have been contaminated by dangerous chemicals for as long as 20 years.

Officials closed the Bronx New School at 3200 Jerome Ave. after repeated air monitoring tests since January revealed unsafe levels of several toxic chemicals, especially trichloroethylene (TCE), which is a possible carcinogen.

A catastrophic oil spill was waiting to happen.

That's what one expert who has studied government data on the huge and growing number of Gulf of Mexico spills is saying.

"There have been thousands of spills from 1990 to 2009," said Walter Hang, head of Toxics Targeting, an Ithaca, N.Y., company that tracks and analyzes federal hazardous spill reports.

While many were small, the sheer number of incidents is mind-boggling, Hang said.