The furor over the old lighting fixtures and other installations in the city's public schools has boiled over into a page A1 NY Times (NYC edition) article about the potential dangers of PCBs. A parent says, "You don’t send your children to school thinking, ‘My kid is going to be exposed to a chemical that’s toxic enough that they ban it in building materials.'" more ›

For the second day in a row, some Staten Island public school students have ditched school—with the EPA's permission. Ten classrooms in two schools were closed yesterday because higher-than-acceptable levels of PCBs were detected. Notably, when a PS 36 teacher complained about fluid leaking from a lighting fixture, "more 200 times the accepted amount of 50 parts per million" of PCBs were found in two classrooms. While students in those two classrooms were pulled, other parents removed their students from the school— the attendance rate was 26% at PS 36. more ›

According to a suit filed by New York and six other states against the bankrupt company Chemtura Corp., fields in Red Hook Park have levels of PCBs over 110 times what environmental agencies consider safe. Polychlorinated biphenyl production was banned by Congress in 1979 because exposure was linked to things like low birth rate for pregnant women, liver cancer and a loss of motor skills, but apparently leaked into the park from Chemtura's Red Hook plant, which closed in 1999. Chemtura, the nation's largest producer of plastic additives, has repeatedly refused to clean a leak at its plant. more ›

Two different chemicals are causing concern at schools citywide. One comes from inside the schools—it’s a toxin found in the window caulking of older buildings. The other is a chemical brought in by workers to strip the paint from school windows. more ›

Some three decades after polychlorinated biphenyl [PCB] was banned, the stuff is still found in rivers, plants, and human bodies, where it can suppress the immune system, alter the reproductive system, cause asthma, cardiovascular disease, enhance the effects of other carcinogenic substances, and reduce IQ, according to City Limits. In April 2008, the Daily News found PCBs in window sills and door frames in dozens of city public schools, but city health officials determined that in most cases the PCBs in the caulking had not leaked into the air and weren't dangerous. State regulations permit the caulk to remain in place until renovations take place, though some experts warn that PCBs left undisturbed can still leach out. Now one Bronx mom, Naomi Gonzalez, is suing the city to force it to remove all the tainted caulk from Public School 178, where her 6-year-old daughter attends school. Last year former City Health Commissioner Dr. Thomas Frieden insisted the PCB caulk was perfectly harmless: "Do PCBs pose a health risk in the schools where they're present in intact caulk sample?... The findings clearly indicate they do not." Of course, this is the same guy who shrugged off reports that swine flu could kill 90,000 Americans nationwide. more ›