Senate Education Committee reviews PCB testing, remediation and funding for pre‑1980 schools

State environmental officials told the Senate Education Committee on Tuesday that polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, remain detectable in indoor air at a number of Vermont schools built or renovated before 1980, and that the program to test and remediate those schools is paused pending additional funding.

Matt Chapman, director of the Waste Management and Prevention Division at the Vermont Department of Environmental Conservation, and Trish Capolino, senior program manager for the Contaminated Sites Program, told senators the department has been sampling and, in some cases, removing PCB‑containing building materials since a series of detections began during school renovations in 2020.

The discussion focused on the health risks of PCBs, the department’s testing and sampling approach, the number of schools affected, and the limits of current funding. “PCBs can cause serious health problems,” Capolino said, adding that exposure effects “depend on how much, how often and how long someone is actually exposed to them.” She said indoor air in schools can be the largest PCB exposure source for students and staff because PCBs can be emitted from building materials.

Why this matters: PCBs are persistent, were manufactured until 1979 and were widely used in building materials and electrical equipment before 1980. Vermont law requires testing of public and state‑recognized independent schools built or renovated before 1980; the committee was briefed on how that requirement has been…