More PCBs Found In New York City Schools
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Despite the City of New York continuing to downplay the significance, more and more test results have shown high levels of PCBs in New York City Public Schools. These results have come from spot checks conducted at various schools throughout the City. Last year, the City of New York entered into a stipulation with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency wherein a few of the more than 1,600 public schools were required to be tested for PCBs.
If levels higher than those allowed by federal law were found, the City was required to cleanup what was believed to be the source of the contamination; namely, caulking in the windows at these particular schools. However, once the caulk was removed from the windows at a few select schools, another source of contamination became apparent. The thousands of fluorescent lights hanging in our children's classrooms could be leaking PCBs into the air, causing levels more than 10 times the EPA limit of 50 parts per million.
The City, despite these findings, maintains that there is no danger as the exposure is not likely to cause immediate harm to children. What the City has sadly missed is that children are and have been exposed to PCBs in our public schools for the long term. Most public school children will be in the same school building for at least six (6) years. No one knows what the true effect of such long term exposure, despite PCB being a known carcinogen whose manufacture has been banned.
The City claims that it will cost over a billion dollars to remove and replace all the fluorescent lighting in the schools. The actual cost has been debated by the City, the EPA and parent groups. The City's words about about lack of immediate harm to students provides their true reason and true motive for such a price tag. Declaring a crisis would potentially displace 1.1 million students from their schools while the PCBs were removed and the classrooms were cleaned. Procuring space for these 1.1 million students, setting up temporary classrooms and cleaning up what I believe to be a much bigger problem than anyone has allowed us to believe would easily eclipse the $1,000,000,000 estimate. Such a scenario would bankrupt the City and create a problem that has not short term solution. I am sure that there will be much more to this story, as my previous posts to this blog have shown.
