HARTFORD— This school district faces extensive and costly remediation of several areas of the high school and career and technical center due to elevated levels of polychlorinated biphenyls, commonly known as PCBs, according to recently completed environmental testing.
“We’re essentially going to have to gut down to the framing in those classrooms and affected areas,” Facilities Director Jonathan Garthwaite told the Hartford School Board at its regular meeting last week.
Air sampling last spring indicated high levels of PCB contamination in the culinary arts and health science areas in the career and technical center. Those programs were relocated to non-hazardous locations.
An environmental consultant then conducted bulk sampling of materials to determine the exact source of the contamination. Hartford’s sampling indicated that PCBs were present in paint and wall finishes, caulking, floor substrates and window glazing. Problem areas include the auditorium, gymnasium and “B-wing,” which is the high school’s primary academic space, Garthwaite said.
School officials hope that by renovating the areas that are currently unoccupied, the district can create “swing spaces” that will allow students and administrators to stay in the building throughout the remediation process, Garthwaite said.
In the high school auditorium, the process of removing contaminated caulking will be a “fairly disruptive, invasive process where we put the whole place under negative pressure, clean it out, remove the material,” Garthwaite said, before “putting everything back together.”
The PCB abatement process will occur alongside ongoing facilities work. Last year, voters approved a $21 million bond for district-wide repairs and renovations, including replacing fire alarms and sprinkler systems at the high school.
There are opportunities to combine work to increase efficiency and reduce costs, Garthwaite said. If a ceiling needs to be removed to replace a sprinkler system, for example, that would present an opportunity to remove any PCB-contaminated materials.
“We don’t want to just meet the EPA standard. We don’t want to just meet the state standard. We want to make sure that whoever sits in my chair after me doesn’t find this 10 years down the road when it’s going to be more expensive and more problematic to deal with,” Garthwaite said.
The use of PCBs was banned by the Environmental Protection Agency in 1980. As materials containing PCBs break down, the chemicals are released and can be breathed in as vapor or dust. That exposure can cause cancer and other serious health issues, according to the Vermont Department of Health.
In 2021, Vermont became the first state to mandate testing of school buildings for PCBs through Act 74. The legislation allocated $32 million for testing and remediation, funds that are running out.
The high school is one of three school buildings in Hartford required by the state to undergo testing for PCB contamination.
The middle school was found to have no actionable levels of contamination in November 2023. The White River School was required to have air sampling completed by July of this year, but that testing hasn’t been scheduled at the state level due to lack of funding.
The school district, though, plans to test the school on its own, with the expectation that the state will compensate it for the cost.
“The law requires it, and our duty to the people who use that facility requires it,” Garthwaite said by phone Friday. “When we schedule that work, we’ll just send a note to the state saying we’re doing this work and we expect to be reimbursed,” he added.
Hartford is one of six schools throughout the state where the Department of Environmental Conservation, or DEC, is focused on finalizing testing and remediation with the remainder of available state funding.
The district is counting on the Monsanto Corporation, the sole U.S. manufacturer of PCBs from the 1930s through the 1970s, to foot the bill if the state can’t.
Hartford leadership is hoping to avoid the displacement of students and staff that befell North Country Union High School this academic year.
Unable to mitigate contamination levels by the start of the school year, North Country held classes in rented wedding tents for two months. The total cost for testing and cleanup of PCB contamination at North Country was $7.2 million, according to the DEC.
Hartford is one of 92 Vermont schools suing Monsanto for the cost of cleaning up the toxic materials in its buildings.
“We should be made whole by Monsanto Corporation. We would not be doing any of this, but for their product,” Garthwaite said.
Burlington-based attorney Pietro Lynn of Lynn, Lynn, Blackman & Toohey, P.C. is representing the plaintiffs in the case against the biotech giant.
“We will be seeking all of the costs of remediation,” Lynn said.
“We would welcome any resolution that fully compensated Vermont schools for the costs that they will incur in making school buildings safe for their students and staff,” he added.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Elevated PCB levels at Hartford High and tech center require remediation.