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Mandating Testing for PCBs in Schools |
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This protocol has been developed in consultation with the New York State Department of Health, Division of Environmental Health Assessment, Bureau of Toxic Substance Assessment to address concerns about properly managing caulk containing PCBs that will be disturbed during building renovation and maintenance ... NYS Education Department Facilities Planning June 2007 The standard procedure to carry out sanitation of PCB containing sealants is carefully remove the sealant with a knife and then grind 1-2 mm in the concrete... Research and Development in Sanitation Technology for PCB-containing Sealants From our experience, an irregular distribution of PCB burdens may occur even in building construction in one phase. One phase for these variations is that the PCBs were added to the sealants as a plasticizer directly during construction. The amount of PCBs added to the sealants depends on the actual temperature, because lower temperatures demand more plasticizer ... Proceedings: Healthy Buildings 2003 |
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| In late June, the EPA approved a $2 million dollar cleanup project that will decontaminate the buildings outdoor caulking, replace contaminated carpeting in the buildings library, and remove PCBs that have seeped into the asphalt and soi below the tower ... Daily New Hampshire Gazette July 6, 2007 | |||||||||||||||||
| Environmental health researchers at Harvard School of Public Health have identified caulking and sealing materials as an unrecognized and possibly widespread source of PCB contamination in schools and buildings constructed in the 1960s and 1970s ... New York State Education Department Office of Facilities Planning Newsletter #56 Oct. 2004 * | |||||||||||||||||
| Studies of teachers in schools containing PCB caulking concluded that there was heavy indoor air contamination with low chlorinated PCBs, causing a significant increase of PCB blood levels... Dr. Bob Herrick of the Harvard School of Public Health Feb. 2005 | |||||||||||||||||
Investigations since the early 1990s have provided evidence that occupancy of buildings containing PCB-rich construction materials can result in elevated serum PCB levels ... Summary of studies on occupants of PCB-containg buildings by Dr. Bob Herrick of the Harvard School of Public Health 2005 Future reductions in PCB concentrations in outdoor air and ultimately human exposure best achieved by action to remove remaining sources of PCBs from existing structures ... Environmental Science & Technology 2007 Assemblyman Willis Stephens, R- Southeast, plans to introduce a bill to require every district to test a sample of caulk in buildings constructed or substantially refurbished before january 1978. The state would cover the cost of the testing which would be about $60 per sample, his legisltive director said. Stephens said this legislation would be a first step in assessing the magnitude of the problem ... |
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"Besides volatilization into air, joint sealants containing PCB must be considered a relevant source of emissions of PCB into soil and water, as well"... Environmental Science & Technology 2005 * "Studies of serum PCB levels, the elevations in PCB 28, 52 and 101 comparing students, and residents of PCB-containing buildings with controls are not small, in fact there are order of magnitude differences, up to 30 fold elevations. And there is evidence that these non-dioxin like congeners have greater neurotoxicity than the more highly chlorinated congeners" ... Dr. Bob Herrick of the Harvard School of Public Health "A spokesman for the State Department of Health said the cleanup was the first the agency was aware of involving PCB contamination from caulk"... New York Times July 4, 2005 (If there is an advertisement, click Skip Ad to see article) "This is something just coming on the radar screen," said Rich Cahill, a spokesman for the United States Environmental Protection Agency in the New York region ... New York Times July 4, 2005 |
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| "PCBs found in elementary school soil"... Westchester Journal News Saturday January 29, 2005 | |||||||||||||||||
| "PCBs in window caulking in schools with subsequent contamination of the soils around schools, is an open invitation for exposure to children" ... David Carpenter M.D. March 2004 * | |||||||||||||||||
The University of Rhode closed the Chafee Social Science building, the largest facility on the Kingston Campus, in December 2000 based on test results that show elevated levels of PCBs (polychlorinated biphenyls) in soil outside and in sections inside of the high rise office building ... University of Rhode Island News Bureau Mahar Hall at SUNY Oswego has tested positive for PCB material in caulking ... State University Construction Fund. A couple of caveats, no one is exposed to just a few of the congeners, since they are all present in the Aroclor mixtures, which may have hundreds of congeners in the mix. Also, there is much more tox info on the PCB congeners that resemble 2,3,7,8 TCDD most closely, but the lack of info on some of the others (especially the less chlorinated, more volatile congeners) does not mean that they are less toxic, it may just be that they have not yet been as extensively tested as some of the others... Dr. Bob Herrick of the Harvard School of Public Health In buildings using PCB-contaminated sealants, levels up to 7500 ng/m3 have been found (corresponding to a daily dose of 2.5 ug/kg bw) ... Mitigation measures should be undertaken as soon as possible to reduce the level to 300 ng/m3 ... Air Quality Guidelines WHO Regional Office for Europe, Copenhagen, Denmark 2000, page 14 Because of the potential importance of the indirect contribution of PCBs in air to total human exposure, it is important to control known sources as well as to identify new sources ... Air Quality Guidelines WHO Regional Office for Europe, Copenhagen, Denmark 2000, page 16 It is clear that situations exist where part of the general population is exposed to significantly elevated levels of lower chlorinated NDL (non dioxin like) PCB, in indoor air ... The EFSA Journal (2005) page 51 The levels of PCB 28 and 52 were considerably higher in people living in contaminated flats compared to those from control flats ... The EFSA Journal (2005) page 51 |
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Caulk containing PCBs found in local buildings... KIROTV Seattle, Washngton 2004 PCB contamination has been discovered in caulking at an elementary school. Improper cleanup has resulted in soil contaminaiton around the facility ... NYS Education Department Newsletter August 2005 *To access PDF files, you need Adobe Acrobat Reader installed Download Acrobat Reader |
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(c) 2005 |
