May 1, 2024

Dear Campus Community,

Today,  May first, we continue to be denied essential information relevant to the health and well being of the staff, students, and faculty who have worked and studied in Poe Hall.

NC State’s administration assured us, after an initial phase of testing, that this would be followed promptly by additional tests. Since the very limited initial sampling was performed with ventilation systems turned off, the results - falsely presented as reassuring - have little or no bearing on the actual risks and damage to health suffered by occupants of  Poe.

Now we are told that the ventilation system in Poe was not reactivated until the middle of April! This means results of tests with the ventilation system in operation are likely weeks or even months away. 

Why the delay?

We cannot help but suspect that this was done so that new, potentially more concerning, test data will be released during the summer, when the campus community is less attentive.  

Since PCBs were first detected in 2018, since the university repeatedly ignored the health concerns of building occupants, since the university called off a NIOSH (National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health) Health Hazard Evaluation and reinstated it only after an outcry in the press and on campus, and since the university has refused to perform tests in other buildings of similar ages and conditions, nothing the university administration has done warrants the trust and confidence of the campus community.

At 3 p.m. today in the Wake County courthouse, Judge Tessener will preside over a petition hearing alleging that the university altered evidence in Poe Hall and is barring testing by outside entities. The university has broken our trust.  

To begin to reestablish that trust, the university must immediately:

• Provide a precise schedule for the next phase of testing in Poe, including thorough documentation for the testing procedures and protocols. Then they must adhere to said schedule and promptly release the results as soon as they are available.

• Establish a truly independent review of the testing being carried out by the university’s contractor.

• Prepare an inventory of campus buildings that pose similar health risks to their occupants and commence testing in those buildings.

Moreover, out of simple human decency, the university must make available, at no cost, appropriate health screenings for all recent and former occupants of Poe.

The university administration may believe that people will forget about Poe Hall over the summer. Those who have been sickened from working in the building and the families of those who have died do not have the luxury of forgetting. The university may take a summer holiday - cancer does not.

Signed,

The Campus Community Alliance for Environmental Justice

NC State Graduate Workers Organizing Committee, UE Local 150

NC State Chapter of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP)