Traces of cancer-causing PCBs have been found at three Park Ridge schools, though the amounts were too low to pose a health risk to students and staff, according to federal environmental officials.
The three schools, part of Park Ridge-Niles District 64, were among 147 houses and other buildings in the town that were tested after Nicor Gas disclosed in June that polychlorinated biphenyls had been found at four homes.
The contamination is believed to have come from PCB-tainted liquids that entered the natural-gas pipeline system.
At a meeting Monday night in Washington Elementary School, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency officials said the school buildings were safe.
“We do not feel there is a public health hazard to the students or the teachers here,” said Mark Johnson, a scientist whose agency is part of the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. “While contamination is present in the boiler rooms, it is not leading to exposure outside those areas.”
Afterward, some parents said they were relieved, to a point.
“I’m a little more reassured, but I’m wondering if this [PCBs] is going on everywhere,” said Suzanne Henn of Park Ridge, who has a child at Washington.
Claris Olson, who works for the Healthy Schools Campaign in Chicago, has a child at Lincoln Middle School, where traces of PCBs also were found.
“I’m concerned about the health risk [to] my son,” she said. “I prefer not to see detectable levels of PCBs anywhere, [though] there seems to be no risk based on what they told us.”
Besides Washington School, 1500 Stewart Ave., and Lincoln School, 200 S. Lincoln Ave., Carpenter Elementary School, 300 N. Hamlin St., as well as at the District 64 administration building and at Evergreen Presbyterian Church were contaminated. No PCBs were found at five other district schools that were tested, EPA officials said.
EPA officials said the traces of PCBs found in the gas regulators at Lincoln and Washington were below the levels considered a threat to human health.
At Carpenter and at the District 64 administration building, PCBs were discovered in the boiler rooms, according to the EPA. As a precaution, the EPA said it would do additional testing at the two buildings to make sure there is no risk to students, faculty and staff.
“We’re working very closely with the EPA to evaluate any potential risk to our students,” said Sally Pryor, District 64 superintendent.
The U.S. banned the manufacture of PCBs in 1977. The chemical was used primarily to lubricate or cool industrial-size transformers and compressors, and Nicor suspects the PCBs used on those machines must have entered its natural-gas pipeline.
PCBs were discovered inside the gas systems at 12 of the 137 homes and five of the other 10 buildings — eight schools, the administration building and the church — that were tested, according to EPA officials and Nicor spokeswoman Annette Martinez.
