Schools across Vermont may soon be testing their facilities for radon and PCBs if separate legislative proposals make it into law.
But lawmakers right now plan to tackle the two contaminants — both linked to cancer — in significantly different ways. In one instance — radon — legislators contemplate requiring tests in all schools and asking districts to pick up the tab. In another — PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls — lawmakers are making money available for testing but leaving it up to schools whether to test or not.
In a last-minute amendment to a facilities bill ordering the Agency of Education to survey the state of school buildings, the Senate last week tacked on a requirement that all public schools test for radon by 2023. House lawmakers now must decide whether to concur, counter the proposal or scrap the bill altogether.
Calling the test for radon a “moral obligation,” Sen. Brian Campion, D-Bennington — chair of the Senate Education Committee, which crafted the amendment — said there was no time to waste.
“It’s been a topic of conversation for a decade or more in the Statehouse,” he said. “I think we can’t have any more kicking the can down the road on this one.”
The House and Senate omnibus state budget bills, meanwhile, both include $4.5 million for PCB testing in schools but would not order that testing occur.
The Department of Health has long offered free radon testing to schools, and at times needled districts to more often avail themselves of the state’s services. But the state currently has the capacity to conduct testing at only 10 to 15 schools per year, and only in the winter. That means districts will likely need to contract out for the work, and the Senate amendment does not anticipate reimbursing schools for testing or remediation.
Legislative analysts estimate testing for radon in all public schools would cost about $900,000. If lawmakers expand it to include private schools, the cost rises to $1.5 million.
That’s a relatively marginal price tag. But if radon is found in schools, it’s impossible to know at this point what remediation might cost.
Remediation costs in schools that have been tested so far have been “incredibly variable,” David Englander, senior policy and legal adviser to the Department of Health, told lawmakers this week.
“It can be zero, and it can be $50,000,” Englander told the House Education Committee.
Lawmakers have another reason to start taking a hard look at the state of K-12 facilities. For the first time in a long time, Congress is likely to send substantial infrastructure dollars their way. School construction funds at the state and national level have been scarce for some time, but an infrastructure bill championed by President Biden could send up to $100 billion to America’s schools.
Education officials have been raising the alarm about Vermont’s aging schools for a number of years now. But PCBs emerged as a top concern last year, when the contaminant was found at such high levels at Burlington High that the entire school went remote and later relocated to a former Macy’s department store. School officials now say the lakefront building must be demolished and replaced.
Anticipating legislative action on PCBs, Gov. Phil Scott included $4.5 million for testing in the state budget proposal he unveiled in January, according to Peter Walke, commissioner of the Department of Environmental Conservation.
The House and Senate kept the funds in the state budget bills they developed. But they never elaborated on what a testing program should look like — whether tests should be mandatory, for example, or how soon tests might be conducted.
Sen. Phil Baruth, D/P-Chittenden, a member of the Appropriations Committee, said he was under the impression the testing would be mandatory, although he added the requirement might be coming from state regulators. But Walke said the administration had expected lawmakers to propose some sort of testing program — much as they did in 2019, when they mandated all schools and child care centers test for lead in their drinking water.
“That has not come to pass. And so it’s my understanding that we will move forward with supporting those schools who would like to test, but it’s not a requirement,” Walke said.
Schools built or “substantially renovated” before 1980 — when PCBs were largely phased out of construction materials — will be eligible for the testing. The state estimates 300 schools fall into this category. Guidance to schools is forthcoming, Walke said.
Campion said he, too, had believed the testing was being required. But if it isn’t, the lawmaker said he would look into attaching such a requirement as a rider into another piece of legislation, despite the session beginning to wind down toward adjournment.
“Seven more days of the Legislature is still a lot of time,” he said.
