Three New York City schools found with unsafe levels of PCBs

PCBs in NYC Schools

Three New York City schools, which have been tested for PCBs, have higher-than-acceptable levels of the dangerous toxins. The schools—P.S. 199, located on Manhattan’s Upper West Side; P.S. 178, which is on Bronx’s Baychester Avenue; and P.S. 309, in Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn—all tested with PCB levels in excess of those deemed acceptable according to federal guidelines.

In 2011, the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is scheduled to test two more schools in New York City, one in Queens and one in Staten Island. Preliminary results point to many city schools, some 1,5000, containing dangerous PCB levels. The legal PCB limit is 50 parts per million (ppm). Amounts higher than this are considered toxic under federal law.

PCBs—which include upwards of 200 different compounds—are a class of very toxic chemical compounds ubiquitously found in construction materials and electrical products in many buildings from the 1950s until 1979, when they were phased out. Despite the phase-out, PCBs may be found in products and materials produced before the phase-out and ban and can also still be found in schools currently in operation.

PCBs were an element in school construction and electrical products from as early as the 1950s and until 1979, indicating that countless students over three decades could have been exposed over the long-term to this cancer causing, neurologically and endocrine disrupting chemical. Meanwhile, PCBs have not been removed from schools such as P.S. 178 in the Bronx, which tested with levels 2,000 times the legal limit.

While the Department of Education said that air sample levels improved after PCB-laden caulking and lightening fixtures were removed, levels still remain higher than federal guidelines. Decontamination of New York City’s schools is very costly; however, adverse health reactions, including cancer and neurological disorders, have been linked to long-term exposure to the toxin. The effects of PCBs on school children for the past few generations is potentially staggering.