New York City Schools Get PCB Removal Offers from Private Firms

A few weeks ago the New York City Board of Education announced that the removal of PCBs in New York City schools would be a 10 year $708 million dollar project which many criticized. New York City's criticized plan from the beginning seemed by many to be projected at too high of a cost and too long of a wait. A 10 year project would mean an exposure of potentially dangerous levels of PCBs for a large amount of New York City public school children. The project in many people's minds should be done as quickly as possible to minimize exposure to PCBs for students and teachers as much as possible.

Private firms have stepped forward recently with plans they have come up on their own. These plans have come from different firms in New York City and the surrounding area and consist of plans to do the job in as little as 2 to 3 years. A shorter project would mean less prolonged exposure and could in turn decrease the chances of students and teachers experiencing health problems in the future. Some of the offers from the private firms include one firm who said they would absorb the upfront cost to do the project and would only ask in return that the New York City schools give the private firm whatever amount the schools save from having new energy efficient lights installed for three years. They believe that they could recover the cost of the project in three years of energy saving the school would be making.