Schools Chosen for PCB Study

By Mireya Navarro
P.S. 178James Estrin/The New York Times P.S. 178 in the Bronx is one of five schools chosen for a study of PCBs.

City and federal officials have chosen five schools, one in each borough, for a pilot study to assess the environmental risks posed by PCBs in school buildings.

The schools, chosen based on their PCB contamination or their potential for it, are Public School 3 in Staten Island, Public School 199 in Manhattan, Public School 309 in Brooklyn, Public School 178 in the Bronx and Public School 183 in Queens.

The study, announced in January, is the result of an agreement between the city and the federal Environmental Protection Agency to address potential violations of the Toxic Substances Control Act related to PCBs in caulk. The city had found unsafe concentrations of PCBs — above the allowable level of 50 parts per million – during construction and renovation projects.

The testing is expected to start this year after the New York City School Construction Authority submits an implementation schedule, said Elias Rodriguez, a spokesman for the Environmental Protection Agency.  Federal officials said the study should eventually lead to a plan for cleanups and for reducing potential exposure that can serve as a model for a citywide approach and for other school districts around the county.

PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, are a class of highly toxic chemical compounds widely used in construction materials and electrical products in many buildings from the 1950s until their phase-out in 1978. Long-term exposure when PCBs are released from the caulk into the air, or through direct contact, can result in cancer and affect immune and reproductive systems.

Legislators in Albany have also introduced a bill that would require testing of the caulk in doors and windows for PCBs in all school buildings in the city built or renovated between 1950 and 1980. Advocates say such caulk sampling is more reliable than the air, soil and dust testing to be conducted in the pilot study, which calls for caulk testing only when sampling exceeds certain levels of PCB contamination.

“It’s good that they’re doing a pilot project but it’s my firm belief that it’s the government’s responsibility to ensure that students and everyone who works in a school building are not exposed to harmful contaminants,” said Assemblywoman Linda B. Rosenthal, a sponsor of the bill whose district includes one of the schools in the pilot study, P.S. 199 on the Upper West Side.

“I want to ensure the safety of students in every school building.”

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Theo Dracos March 29, 2010 · 9:21 am

With calls to remove contaminated caulking from schools and public buildings in New York City at a cost of perhaps $100’s of millions, now is clearly the time to ask the crucial question: Are our priorities for dealing with PCBs rational and well-ordered? But before we look at the realities, let us look at the stakes involved in the PCBs catastrophe.
Science has proven, beyond reasonable doubt, that PCBs are the most destructive, widely dispersed, group of industrial chemicals to ever be inadvertently released into the biosphere. In humans, PCBs are linked to a variety of cancers; breast cancer in genetically susceptible women, testicular cancer, non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma, liver cancer, and brain cancer to name some of the major carcinomas. While cancer may be the most frightening health issue associated with PCBs, there are others – more subtle to be sure – but hardly less dire. The ability of PCBs to warp basic bodily processes such as those of the immune system, nervous system and reproduction are well-documented by researchers across the globe.
While we should certainly applaud those scientific investigators who go into our schools and public buildings, we as citizens along with the regulators, need to look critically at even the most well-intentioned research. The Harvard-based researcher who discovered high levels of PCBs in caulking in the Boston area recommended that all contaminated caulking be removed from all public buildings – especially schools – as soon as possible. The EPA approved and is now calling for schools across the nation to be tested for the contaminated caulking.
But, as it turns out, the data of the Harvard-based researcher is thin, resting on a study of only six construction workers who removed PCB-laden caulking – a hazardous enterprise if not done with caution. They were found to have somewhat elevated levels of PCBs in their blood. However, it was not determined whether these elevated levels were caused by inhaling PCBs or through physical contact. More worrisome, the scientific investigator states in his paper published in the prestigious “Environmental Health Perspectives” journal in 2004 that even with the most PCB-contaminated caulking “the impact…is modest compared with those associated with eating contaminated fish.” Put another way: it’s possible that a student eating a single salmon steak would get a higher dose of the chemical than a student sitting in a classroom with PCB-laden caulking for 12 years.
Since there have been no in-depth, controlled inhalation studies of PCB-contaminated caulking, nobody really knows how dangerous the situation is. So is it realistic to call for the removal of PCBs contaminated caulking at an expense of millions of dollars per school or public building in the New York City and around the state when scientists have documented the great majority of human PCBs exposure comes from diet – mainly fish and dairy products? (It should be added here that it cost the University of Rhode Island $3.5 million dollars in 2000 to remove contaminated caulking from a single campus building.)
Of course, there’s an excellent argument to be made that it’s best to err on the side of caution when you’re dealing with toxic substances like PCBs. According to the World Health Organization there are no ‘safe’ levels of PCBs. But if we rationally prioritize and if the EPA and state government want to truly protect citizens from the dangers of PCBs, then they should test every batch of fish sold in the state for levels of PCBs. And more importantly, they should require warning labels on fish containing any amounts of the chemical that might be consumed by women of childbearing age since myriad studies have demonstrated the long-term dangers of prenatal exposure. (PCBs readily cross the placental barrier.) Spot checks of all dairy products in the state should also be undertaken as well since they are another established source of PCBs exposure.
…But back to our ‘caulking’ problem. There seem to be at hand less dangerous and far less expensive methods for dealing with contaminated caulking besides physical removal. Scientists at MIT have already developed a method for “encapsulating” PCBs – sealing them off with inert materials. And finally – it would make sense to find out if caulking in any given building is, in fact, the major source of contamination since PCBs were used in a slew of other industrial products such as varnishes, waxes, floor sealants, lubricants, foams, and many varieties of paints before PCBs were banned in the mid-1970’s.
Our understanding of the enormous damage to human health and the biosphere done by PCBs and their industrial chemical cousins becomes more obvious by the year as scientists continue to develop new, highly sophisticated analytical techniques. We just can’t afford to focus on any single source of PCBs while ignoring other highly documented sources, no matter the good intentions of the scientists and regulators. The war against PCBs and other toxic industrial chemical contaminants will be long, so let us deploy our limited funds with common sense and wisdom. It is the only realistic way to deal with the catastrophe that this modern-day Pandora’s Box represents.