WASHINGTON — Hundreds of school buildings across the United States have caulk around windows and doors containing potentially cancer-causing PCBs, the Environmental Protection Agency says.
The danger to students is uncertain, and the EPA does not know how many schools could be affected. But the agency is telling schools to test old caulk.
EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson said PCBs are in schools and many other buildings built before the chemicals were banned in the late 1970s.
The agency said it would conduct new research into the link between PCBs in caulk and in the air, which it said is not well understood. Studies in European countries have shown that PCBs in caulk contribute to dust in the air inside schools and other buildings.
The EPA recommends testing for PCBs in peeling, brittle, cracking or deteriorating caulk in schools and other buildings that were built or renovated between 1950 and 1978. The caulk should be removed if PCBs are at significant levels, it said. The agency also will conduct its own tests on PCBs in schools.
The law requires that building owners remove caulk if they discover very high levels of PCBs. But proper removal is very expensive.
“It’s a huge disincentive for building owners,” said Robert Herrick of Harvard’s School of Public Health. “If you look for it and find it, you have to report it to the EPA and remove it, so why would you look for it in the first place?”
He said Berkshire Community College in Massachusetts saw an approximately $2 million project for window replacement and renovation increase to $5 million after engineers tested caulk and found PCBs.
A mother sued New York City this month over PCBs in caulk at her daughter’s public school.
New York City schools spokeswoman Ann Forte declined to comment on the lawsuit but said the system is “engaged in positive and productive discussions with EPA to develop and agree on a plan to address PCBs.”
Federal officials said the issue was serious but should not be cause for alarm.
The agency set up a PCBs-in-caulk hotline, 1-888-835-5372, and a website, .
Hundreds of the 80,000 public school buildings across the country were built between 1950 and 1978, though it is difficult to say exactly how many.
A decade-old Education Department report said the average building was 40 years old, and the Rebuild America’s Schools coalition says two-thirds of schools have an environmental problem such as the presence of cancer-causing asbestos or radon gas, lead in water and paint, or leaking underground storage tanks.
