Dioxin Dorms Blog :: SUNY New Paltz

MY OLD friend Christopher has said many times it’s difficult to talk to people about their rights when they don’t know what those rights are. Most people don’t know they have the right not to be poisioned — and the right to know when it’s happening. So, imagine the challenges associated with talking to people about contamination in a world where “everything is toxic.”

That being said — things went as well as could be expected yesterday; in truth, very well for those of us spreading the word about what occurred in the four dormitories.

I would estimate that well over 80% of the people who received literature were receptive. People expressed genuine concern, some disgust, and willingness to confront the issues. Actually doing so is another story, but I am satisfied that the months of recent work, and years of research and investigation before that, that went into warning students about the problem in their building Monday were effective at starting a discussion.

I feel that this is the first time we now have the ability for an honest conversation about the toxic dorms on the New Paltz campus. That being said, everyone who worked outside the dorms yesterday left feeling psychically spent, and heartbroken about the situation we were required to explain to parents and students. Whether they find out and have an opportunity to respond, or don’t find out and spend an academic year breathing in an unknown level of PCB and dioxin toxicity, it is sad, and it should not be so.

It’s also an unfortuante truth, though, that the way an institution or company poisons people is to deceive them. We explain this in the Dioxin Dorms mission statement:

“Particularly with regard to toxic exposures, [the state's] decisions will be made by weighing the risks to you against the benefits to them of allowing such exposure,” writes Carol van Strum.

“Necessarily, the first step in such risk/benefit analysis is to conceal, minimize, or deny the risk element, because what decision-makers fear most and will do anything to avoid is having those who bear the risks assert their right to know about and to avoid that exposure.”

The college has been busy preparing some new information for students. The official webpage on the incident states declaratively, “Scientists Say SUNY Dorms Pose No Health Dangers.”

Is this true? Well, let’s consider that their risk assessment, a 1985 state document called 0549P, allows the state to dose students with 2 picograms of dioxin every day. And according to my conversations with the Division of Environmental Health Assessment, they are in fact allowed to have one student in a million die of cancer. This “one in a million” risk is the typical goal of a risk assessment. [I look at the risk assessment and its many problems in an earlier article called One in Million.]

Let’s put it this way: you would not need a risk assesment were there not a risk. If there is a risk, there cannot be “no health danger.” If you read the state’s PCB webpage thoroughly, it does not even inform the reader of what the health dangers of PCBs and dioxins are, in general.

The words “cancer,” or “hormone damage,” or “immune suppression” or “birth defects,” do not even appear; indeed, there is not one reference to the known health effects of PCBs and dioxins! If maybe you think that’s because the health effects are controversial, try Googling the word dioxin.

I could write a book about the college’s webpage, but I want to make just two additional comments. The website states, in bold text: “there is no reason for concern.”

If that is true, why were the buildings cleaned by workers wearing moonsuits and respirators? Why do they claim to have a monitoring program? Why are PCBs banned at all? Why are dioxins said to be the most toxic chemicals on Earth? This statement, “there is no reason for concern,” is coming from a different universe — that of the polluter.

“Students, visitors and workers at New Paltz are NOT being exposed to elevated PCB contamination on campus,” it goes on.

“This conclusion is based on the results of the long-term and ongoing testing program for PCBs in these buildings and the scientific assessment of the potential health risks from PCBs by the state Department of Health and the Ulster County Department of Health.”

True, a lot of samples have been taken. But why haven’t they been taken any time recently in the exhaust vents that are above every shower (flooding daily with steam), or ever in the radiators of three dorms? Why have the vents in Capen Hall never been tested by the state? If you don’t believe me, you can have it on the letterhead of the college president in a July 30 letter. Click on this PDF and see for yourself: no such data exists.

I cover this in an entry from last week, Um data? What data?

This is a simple issue: if they are saying it’s safe, then let’s see the scientific data to prove it. If they don’t have recent tests in the heat and the vents, there is no way to know the levels at all, much less say that Bliss, Capen, Gage and Scudder halls are safe.

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