Mayor Approves Plan to Remove PCBs from City Schools

Northeast Queens leaders said they were pleased that Mayor Michael Bloomberg approved a $708 million plan to replace fluorescent light fixtures in more than 700 schools across the five boroughs.

The plan would involve the removal of aging light fixtures that included polychlorinated biphenyls, a move which community leaders said would lead to safer and greener classrooms.

“This historic plan by the Department of Education [is] the largest PCB remediation, energy audit and lighting retrofit initiative in any school system in the country by far,” said Councilman James Gennaro, D-Fresh Meadows, who is the chairman of the City Council’s Environmental Protection Committee.

The initiative would be implemented at 772 city schools, but it was unclear whether any of District 26 schools, which include Douglaston’s P.S. 98 and Little Neck’s P.S. 221, would be included.

But Robert Caloras, president of Community District Education Council 26, said he believes at least several of District 26’s schools will likely be updated.

“All our schools in the district are over 50 years old,” he said. “I’m glad the Bloomberg administration is acting upon scientific evidence and feeling the need to do this.”

The lighting fixtures were installed between 1950 and 1979. But the use of PCBs, which are a class of organic compounds with one to 10 chlorine atoms attached to biphenyl, was later banned in city schools.

The city will accept bids for the project later in the year, but the project could take as long as a decade to complete.

In three years, the city will revisit the timeline for the project and make any necessary changes, according to the DOE.

Schools Chancellor Cathie Black said the initiative would result in operational savings for the city.

“This is a progressive plan to increase energy efficiency at our schools and simultaneously address the issue of PCBs in old light fixtures,” Black said. “Given that both the EPA and the Department of Health have said there is no immediate health threat to student in these buildings, we believe this is the most responsible way to proceed. This plan can be accomplished without any significant interruption to student learning and it will generate significant energy savings in the long run.”

The Environmental Protection Agency has said that PCBs can cause cancer in animals as well as lead to a number of effects on the immune, reproductive, nervous and endocrine systems.

The DOE will also eventually replace outdated No. 4 and No. 6 fuel boilers.