The city has agreed to accelerate the timeline to replace potentially toxic lights at a Long Island City middle school after a PCB leak was found in the building earlier this month.
The city Department of Education plans to finish changing all of the light fixtures at Intermediate School 204 within two months, agency officials said Tuesday.
Education officials had previously said the lights would be replaced at some point in the next nine years.
“It’s tragic that we have to wait until PCBs leak before we act,” said City Councilman Jimmy Van Bramer (D-Sunnyside), who rallied Tuesday with concerned parents outside IS 204.
Parent Nancy Nizza, 49, of Astoria, said she considered home schooling her sixth-grade son when she learned of the leak.
“I’m very concerned about my son’s health when he’s in school,” she said.
Fellow mom Brenda Maldonado, 44, of Long Island City, said she was worried it would take years before all of the school’s lights were replaced.
“Why take so long if we’re talking about children’s health here?” asked Maldonado, whose daughter is in the sixth grade.
Christina Giorgio, an attorney with New York Lawyers for the Public Interest, said most leaks are not visible to the naked eye.
“When you have a leak … the air becomes contaminated,” she said. “So every student, every teacher and every school administrator … is breathing air contaminated with PCBs.”
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency spokesman John Martin said all city schools should be assessed for PCBs within five years.
“PCBs are suspected carcinogens and neurotoxins, which is why long-term exposure to PCBs is cause for considerable concern,” Martin told the Daily News in a statement.
The IS 204 leak was discovered by a custodian on Sept. 10 in an empty counselor’s office. The light fixture was immediately replaced.
Calls to IS 204 officials were not immediately returned.
But Education Department officials called their plan to replace all of the potentially contaminated light fixtures in about 700 schools within 10 years “unprecedented” compared to other cities.
“We continue to believe this is an aggressive, environmentally responsible plan that will cause minimum disruption to student learning and generate significant energy savings,” agency spokeswoman Marge Feinberg said in a statement.
