Talks of PCBs Taint Move-In Day
By Kelley Granger, News Editor
An informational rally held during move-in on Aug. 20 and 21 distressed parents and students alike as they were alerted to the possible presence of polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, and dioxin in Gage, Scudder, Capen and Bliss Halls.
Eric Francis Coppolino, a journalist and activist who has been covering the contamination since its onset 16 years ago, said he organized the rally to allow students and parents to make informed decisions about campus housing, but knew the timing would be hard on students who were excited about moving in.
“It’s like expecting Easter Sunday and getting 9/11,” Coppolino told fellow activists from dioxindorms.com and the student group Synthesis during a meeting the day before the campaign. “But for me it’s immoral not to take part in warning people.”
Reactions to Coppolino’s message were mixed. Marissa Morris, a first-year student, was the first student to be approached as she prepared to move into Gage Hall.
“Oh no,” Morris’s mother said as she looked over the information the group handed her. The material included a statement from George Farrell, a biology and chemistry teacher, that said he believed that a lack of leaders with a science background at the time of the initial contamination resulted in a botched cleanup. The material also included a letter from Coppolino topped by the phrase, “Your right to know and to say no.”
When asked if the school had provided them with any information, Morris’s mother replied, “None. Nothing at all. I’m going to pull her out and put her somewhere else.”
Freshman Lindsey Buckley’s mother stood to the side of the Scudder Hall entrance, looking equally as worried as she read Farrell and Coppolino’s statements.
“Effects of extremely low exposures [to PCBs and dioxin] are more often experienced in the long-term as a suppressed immune system; hormone disruption leading to diseases like endometriosis and type 2 diabetes; toxicity to unborn children (including those who may be born in the future and to subsequent generations); and promotion of cancers that may occur at some later time in life (called cancer acceleration),” Coppolino’s letter read.
“Furthermore, these chemicals are bioaccumulative; every dose adds to a lifetime dose, so in effect, exposure is irreversible. The chemicals picked up in one of these buildings follow a person for life.”
“I’m a little upset now,” Buckley’s mother said. “She’s taken environmental science so she knows what this stuff is. I can see her debating it in her head. I can’t believe I didn’t know anything about this.”
“Everything’s been going well so far, I got my roommate, we requested to be here,” Buckley said. “I guess something had to go wrong.”
Other parents rejected the cautioning of Coppolino’s group.
“This is not the time for this!” a mother snapped at Coppolino as she lugged dorm supplies in front of Gage Hall.
Some students appeared indifferent to a risk.
“I don’t want kids anyway,” a student called back over her shoulder toward activist Kristen Bentz after being cautioned of possible reproductive maladies.
A follow-up call to Morris found that she has decided to remain in Gage Hall. “I didn’t want to go through the hassle of trying to move everything,” she said. “There’s a little bit [of concern], but I haven’t thought about it that much.” Morris said she would move if her mother felt she was being affected by any toxins.
The dorms were contaminated in 1991 when a car crashed into a utility pole and caused transformers to overheat or explode, polluting Gage, Capen, Scudder and Bliss Halls, as well as the Coykendall Science Building and Parker Theater, with PCBs and dioxin.
The cleanup cost was estimated to be $50 million, and failures by the school to provide proper disposal of PCBs, keep accurate documentation of maintenance and history of transformers, mark PCB storage areas, and use proper PCB storage locations resulted in fines imposed by the Environmental Protection Agency of more than $150,000.
The New York State Department of Health and the Ulster County Department of Health maintain that based on their ongoing testing, the buildings are safe and that students and workers are not being exposed to elevated levels of PCBs. The school has released a PCB update that claims the dorms pose no threat to students. The document is available for student’s to view at www.newpaltz.edu/healthcenter/pcbupdate.
Coppolino says the health departments use the oldest trick in the book, “Test where you know you’re not going to find it.”
Activists with dioxindorms.com and Synthesis want “real” testing, and the Student Senate passed Resolution 42 unanimously last April, requesting the school to do “split sample” testing, in which half of a sample is tested by an independent company chosen by the Student Association president, currently Jessica Coleman, and the other half is tested by a company of the administration’s choice.
Instead of complying, the school held a meeting where concerned students were able to ask questions of county and state Department of Health officials¿but the meeting was held during the early summer when many students were not on campus.
