[Update below]

You know how the EPA keeps saying "there are dangerous PCBs in New York City schools!" And the Department of Education keeps saying "that's nice but we don't really have the money to deal with that right now?" Well, the dance continues! The results are in from the EPA's latest spot check of city schools and once again the results are not good. On Saturday, February 12, the federal agency checked out P.S. 45 in Brooklyn and found a whole mess of leaking lighting ballasts containing the suspected carcinogens.

To quote the EPA, "if a lighting ballast is leaking PCBs above a regulatory level of 50 parts per million, it is considered an exceedance and federal law requires the immediate removal and disposal of the ballast and disposal of any PCB-contaminated materials at an EPA-approved facility." And how much did they find in P.S. 45's lights? Some of the samples taken on the first and second floors of the school reached 650,000+ parts per million! In room 229, for example, the agency found one such very high sample on a "bulging ballast w/oil spatter and thick tar oozing from seam."

While you let that lovely image sink in, let's circle back to the fact that the Department of Education continues to "insist there is no immediate health risk posed by the PCB leaks" while also saying that it would cost around $1 billion to fix the situation system-wide (we have a hunch the latter is the more pressing issue). But we can't help but remember that this isn't the first time the school system has had issues like this, and a shutdown to fix it (if the PCB problem is as out of hand as the EPA is saying) is not out of the question. Who can forget 1994 when the entire Board of Education system (as it was then known) was shut down over asbestos?

We've reached out to the DoE to find out if they plan to close P.S. 45 in light of these new numbers (as they did in Staten Island) but have yet to hear back.

Update: Barbara Morgan of the Department of Education tells us the school will not be closing: "The EPA indicates there is no immediate health risk for students and staff at PS 45. All leaking ballasts and/or light fixtures that exhibited signs of PCB staining that were inspected by the EPA have already been removed. The remainder of the ballasts or light fixtures in the school will be replaced in the near future.
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