The problem of Vermont schools being contaminated with high levels of chemical compounds called polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs) has bookended the state for the past five years, ranging from the shutdown and demolition of the former Burlington High School in 2020-23 to the recent discovery of high levels of PCBs at Hartford High School and the Hartford Area Career and Technical Center in White River Junction.
PCBs are a class of compounds that had numerous commercial uses in the United States from the late 1920s until their prohibition by the federal government in 1979. Although their most common application was as an insulating material in transformers, capacitors, and other electrical equipment, the volatile compounds were also used in a wide range of building materials, including paints and varnishes, adhesives, caulking, ceiling tiles, and plastics.
In 2021, Vermont became the first state to mandate that schools test their indoor air for PCBs. Act 74 requires all schools, both public and private, built or renovated before 1980, to test for PCBs by July 2027. The Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) can then mandate fixes if PCB levels are found to be at or above an actionable level.
The challenge facing schools in the Mountain Views Supervisory Union (MVSU), which encompasses public schools in Barnard, Bridgewater, Killington, Plymouth, Pomfret, Reading, and Woodstock, is that the state of Vermont has run out of money for the mandated testing program, so it is no longer requiring schools that have not yet been tested to do so. MVSU officials, who’d slated PCB testing for both the Woodstock Union High and Middle School (WUHS/MS) and the Woodstock Elementary School (WES) this summer and for elementary schools in Killington and Reading the next two years, are now struggling with how to proceed with the hunt for potentially toxic environments at the four facilities.
“The wide variety of sources can make it incredibly difficult to track down and to remediate [PCBs],” MVSU director of technology and innovation Raphael Adamek told the MVSU School Board during a presentation on the indoor air quality issues posed by PCBs at the school district governing body’s regular monthly meeting on June 2. “Off-gassing of those materials into the air is the primary route of exposure and the [Environmental Protection Agency] has determined that PCBs are ‘probably’ carcinogens and the [World Health Organization] has said they are ‘definitely’ carcinogens and high levels of exposure can cause all sorts of non-carcinogenic effects as well, so they are a serious threat,” Adamek offered.
Adamek, MVSU superintendent Sherry Sousa, and director of buildings and grounds Joe Rigoli each updated school board members on the PCB conundrum during a presentation at the school board meeting in the Teagle Library at WUHS/MS on June 2.
Sousa presented the school board with two present-day options: board members could either opt to delay air quality testing at WUHS/MS and WES until state funding becomes available to cover the costs, or the board could authorize testing for both schools with the costs covered by the local school budget. Based on conversations Sousa and other MVSU administrators had with Hartford School District (HSD) officials, the cost of testing could range up to $500,000, the superintendent reported.
While a handful of school board members and concerned parents have advocated for prioritizing health issues over school costs, others have expressed concerns about the expense of potential PCB remediation and the possible closing and relocation of all or significant sections of schools at the same time as statewide consolidation talks are contentiously under way as part of the landmark education transformation legislation now deadlocked among lawmakers at the State House in Montpelier.
For now, the MVSU School Board has chosen to assign the issue to its Community Engagement Working Group, which will host a series of public forums on the PCB issue. The engagement group consists of school board representatives Ryan Townsend from Bridgewater, Josh Linton from Plymouth, Lydia Locke from Pomfret, and Sam DiNatale and Sarit Werner from Woodstock. WUHS student and school board student representative Joaquin Jones-Welker also serves on the community engagement team. The MVSU staff liaison to the working group is director of curriculum, instruction, and assessment, Jennifer Stainton.
Dates and times for the public forums on PCB testing and possible remediation at the two Woodstock schools have yet to be announced.
For more on this, please see our June 12 edition of the Vermont Standard.
