Source: Dow Jones News Service, April 28, 2016
Posted on: http://www.advisen.com
For all its ills, New York Penn Station can count one more: toxic contamination on at least two of its tracks.
Amtrak has launched a cleanup at the widely ridiculed and crowded station after tests found chemicals known as PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, on portions of tracks 1 and 10 at the busy Manhattan transit hub.
Now regarded as potentially cancer-causing pollutants, PCBs were commonly used decades ago in lubricants or other commercial applications. Experts say they can harm the skin, liver or immune and nervous systems.
Riders shouldn’t worry, according to Amtrak. The national passenger railroad owns Penn Station but shares it with NJ Transit, the Long Island Rail Road and the New York City subway.
While PCBs can become airborne, tests showed the air at Penn Station is safe, an Amtrak spokesman said.
“Elevated levels” of PCBs were discovered earlier this month in sediment on sections of two of the station’s 21 tracks, the spokesman said. A bulletin for workers noted PCBs were found on concrete track structures.
Amtrak warned workers they shouldn’t perform work in the areas in question without specific authorization, according to the bulletin, which was reviewed by The Wall Street Journal.
Late Wednesday night, crews from Amtrak and Clean Harbors, a company specializing in cleaning up hazardous waste, were working on Penn Station’s Track 1. A spokesman for the company didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment on Thursday.
A truck equipped with a large vacuum backed onto the track, on which were workers dressed in puffy white protective outfits. One they hosed down the track with water.
Amtrak said all concrete track areas should be treated as though they are contaminated with PCBs, and the bulletin notes the cleanup will continue on Penn Station’s other tracks.
“There is no danger to customers as the contamination is confined to an area not accessible by the general public,” the spokesman said in a written statement, which noted its highest priority was workers’ and riders’ safety.
Experts said PCBs’ health risk depended on the chemical’s concentrations, and how long riders or employees may have been exposed.
“The highest risk will be for the workers who are exposed chronically doing the same thing day in, day out, in the same contaminated environment,” said Judith Zelikoff, a professor of environmental medicine at New York University.
The Amtrak spokesman didn’t immediately provide details on the contamination levels but said the PCB source was under investigation. The spokesman said the railroad would make necessary equipment and training available.
But Tom Wohanka, vice chairman of a union representing Amtrak’s track workers, criticized Amtrak for what he described as a slow, reactive response to a decades-old PCB problem.
Mr. Wohanka said his union was pursuing litigation against Amtrak for PCB exposure. The railroad spokesman didn’t immediately respond to his criticism.
Employees who maintain tracks already have dangerous jobs and now have to worry about exposure to toxins in areas where they work, walk and eat lunch, Mr. Wohanka said.
“This is the sandbox that we’re playing in,” Mr. Wohanka said. “Our guys on a regular basis are digging in these contaminated soils and they don’t even know it.”
Penn Station is slated to get an overhaul under a plan launched by New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo earlier this year. The project would renovate the station and expand into a post office building across Eighth Avenue.