One-on-one interview: NC Chancellor Randy Woodson discusses Poe Hall contamination

Well Chancellor Woodson thank you so much for doing this

2024-03-23

I genuinely really appreciate it and I want the goal

of it to be just getting more information out

We are inundated by people wanting information just like I'm

sure you are

Um I guess we can kind of start at the

beginning

So we know that NC state closed PO Hall or

tested PO Hall after several employees raised concerns about the

potential increased rate of cancer at PO Hall

When were you first made aware of those concerns Uh

I was made aware the first week of November

Ok

So that was that's pretty late

Well that's when I was made aware right And so

it just kind of shows that it took maybe some

time to get it to you

Um When did you hear uh about the the deci

decision to close Poe Haller or were you a part

of that Well since I made the decision I heard

about it right away Keeley I mean so I I

understood when I learned that we had tested and found

early evidence of P CBS in the building again the

first week of November that uh the back story which

is why we had been doing the testing and why

there had been employees raising concerns

This is a large university and we have a phenomenal

environmental health and safety group here and they're evaluating the

health and safety of buildings constantly

And so it's not unusual that I would not have

heard about it until there was a decision that had

to be made

And so they came to me in in early November

and my leadership team and uh said that we had

found these early indications of P CBS in the building

and that they were doing some subsequent testing and those

results would be coming in in the next few days

a week

And when those results came back and we found evidence

uh additional evidence of P CBS in the building

Uh My leadership team and I got together and we

made the decision again out of an abundance of caution

Throughout this time our environmental health and safety team had

been reaching out to D HHS and and others in

this space to earn get a sense of what uh

we should be doing

No one asked us to close the building

There was no regulatory agency suggesting that we close the

building but I knew that for us to be able

to do the critical testing necessary to understand what the

environment truly was

And to understand whether that had any any implications for

health that we were gonna have to do a lot

of testing

Uh And that would be disrupted to the lives of

people in the building not to mention uh result in

a lot of concern

So we made the very difficult decision again out of

an abundance of caution to close the building

And that's not an easy decision to make when you

have a building as large as PO Hall

But yes we did make that decision

Are you concerned about the health of the people who

spent time in Po Hall I'm concerned about the health

of every employee of our university

So certainly I'm concerned about anyone's health at our university

But I'm equally concerned and more importantly value the science

behind uh the the environment within the building

So in order to be able to fully engage with

people about health implications we have to have questions answered

about the environment within the building and and I knew

that would take significant testing

And so yes I'm very concerned about anyone's health particularly

anyone that's been diagnosed uh with a serious ailment ill

illness as serious as cancer

But having said that it's most important that we give

them the information that they need uh to understand if

there is any connection to the their health

OK

In 2018 the exterior tested very high for P CBS

If you could go back would you have taken things

a step further and tested the interior I mean the

the information was was there at least on the exterior

Yeah

And that was that's true for a number of buildings

because the the truth is that EPA for many years

has had guidelines around testing particularly cork that is used

around windows

And any time we're going into a building built in

that generation a and looking to renovate the building looking

to remove windows or replace caulking out of again out

of uh following EPA guidelines we go in and evaluate

whether there are EP uh P CBS in the ca

and so there have been P CBS detected in the

exterior caulking around windows in a number of buildings at

the university

But that's never been uh led to or even required

to look uh at the internal environment within the building

were the P CBS and the caulking exterior removed

Uh I don't I don't know the answer to that

because it was part of a of an A test

whether there were were present or not

I think in this case the windows were not replaced

uh because we're still looking to get all the funds

together for the renovation

Uh But it did inform us if they were removed

how we would have to handle the material

I wanna quickly shift gears to the Federal Health investigation

Um You had said yourself many times that you reopened

or asked Nash to reopen the investigation after you had

the test results in hand

Well these are two memos from the CDC from January

22nd

And they show that the discussion was had around that

time end of January to no longer have the health

investigation active

The testing was done in the December 22nd

Why would you have the testing done Then call off

the health investigation only to reopen it two weeks later

after the you you've seen our letter to NASH you've

seen uh that that I mean you've reported on it

it's on your website

So we in fact did not ask n to stop

an investigation

We told n that we were in the process of

of testing the building

Uh It was made clear to us by people we

were talking to and I wasn't part of these conversations

but it's been reported to me that it was clear

in our conversations with Nash uh that they would like

to get this these test results and that when those

test results began to come in reach back out to

them and initiate the conversation

And as soon as we got the first test results

back we did just that 152 people

I know the university is not collecting this information but

100 and 52 people who say they worked or studied

in Po Hall have reported that they have cancer

59 of those are breast cancer cases and it doesn't

that count that 1 52 doesn't count the reproductive cognitive

issues benign tumors and then the concerns that po Hall

employees Children developed and uh developmental and health issues after

being exposed to chemicals in utero and through breast milk

Now all of those things go far beyond the health

concerns as you've called it

What do you have to say to those people right

now Well as I've as I've said to you earlier

in this interview any health diagnosis or any uh particularly

a diagnosis is is consequential as cancer is devastating to

an individual and their family

I understand that uh and and so we feel very

uh responsible for understanding the environment within the building so

that individuals and their health care providers can understand if

there's a relationship uh between the building environment and we

don't have that information at this time

And so it's we feel a responsibility to make sure

that we're evaluating the building

We're doing all the testing necessary so that we can

give that information to employees and to their families so

that they can have the appropriate conversations with their health

care providers

I have uh one current employee who knew we were

doing this interview

And um she said this to me they prioritized work

in protecting themselves from liability

Speaking of the university over addressing employee concerns it's so

dehumanizing and it minimizes the struggles we've been through

That's a current employee here

What do you have to say to that Well um

I think the most important thing is that if we

didn't value the health of the employees in the university

we wouldn't have closed the building down and began to

evaluate the building so that we could provide the appropriate

information

So clearly we value the health and safety of our

employees in all of our buildings

And we're working really hard to understand the environment and

understand what the environment has been like over these years

so that we can provide the appropriate information back to

employees

I think a lot of current students who were in

that building are concerned even if they're healthy right now

we know that you can get tests or they might

not be um conclusive but people can get tests for

P CBS to see if they have high levels in

their system

I have some instances of students going to university health

and the campus health not being equipped to do those

kinds of tests

Would you ever consider um having the university partner with

an outside group that could do those tests Well we're

partnering right now with NASH and we're gonna follow the

lead of NASH in terms of they're doing a full

health uh hazard evaluation of the building

And depending on the results of that if there are

recommendations that uh employees should be tested in certain ways

and we'd consider that at the time

But at this point you know our focus is really

on the environment within the building so that we understand

Keely I'm a I'm a scientist

I tend to make decisions based on the availability of

data and information

And at this point we don't have the data and

information on the building and we're working to get that

so that we can do

Uh they provide the appropriate information back to our employees

and and students have studied in the building for years

but it's been four months since the building was closed

I think if people there's so much anxiety around the

fact of like was I exposed am I going to

get sick and we're working on it as quickly as

we can When do you think people will get answers

And what kind of concrete health answers do you think

you're gonna be able to provide Uh Well I'm not

a health care provider and I'm certainly not a physician

Uh My phd is in plant biology so I'm not

sure I'm the person you can that can answer that

question

I can tell you that we can't answer questions about

individuals health until we know the environment that they weren't

exposed to

And at this point we don't uh building expert we

spoke to said 30 samples in one room is really

needed to understand the sources of P CBS and exposure

Geo Syntex testing does not come anywhere close to that

I mean well we've done one phase of testing Keely

So let's not evaluate the thoroughness of the testing until

we're done

How many tests and how how many samples do you

expect them to take And when do you expect the

test to be done They're in the process of testing

right now and I expect the testing to be done

um toward the end of April

Uh how quickly after that do you expect any concrete

answers That's when I expect the concrete answers Ok

That's great

I wanna point to some language that was in the

Geo Syntech report uh from February

It's um I'm just gonna hand it to you just

so you can see the this is after the first

round of their testing and ahead of the March testing

which I assume is taking place right now

It says that before the H VAC system is turned

back on for that testing geosyntec may quote replace or

encapsulate portions of mechanical systems or clean

Now many people reading that felt that it sounded like

sources of P CBS in Poha could be mitigated before

the final testing

Did that happen Any have any P CS or sources

been removed since the building was closed I can't answer

that keely

I mean Geosyntec is in the building testing right now

So I know that they're in the can't answer if

anything has been removed

Well I wanna ask the chancellor directly

I'm not in the middle of testing

I know that Ge Syntech is in the middle of

their testing

I'm not sure

I mean I they are removing things from the building

that are being tested they're removing samples for the building

but we're not moving things out of the building

If that's your point has anything been cleaned up Uh

I don't believe anything's been cleaned up

I mean I know that there as they go through

and they test and they create dust associated with testing

because this this HB ac system is um complicated because

it's built into the infrastructure of the building

It's literally inside the concrete of the building

So they have to drill to get into it

And so as they drill to get into it there

may be some cleaning up from dust associated with that

but we're not cleaning the building

There's just concern that the environment that people were working

and we're not manipulating the environment to get the testing

We're testing to understand the environment

OK

Why hasn't the university allowed any other agencies into po

hall We're the building owner is critical for us to

evaluate the building and understand what the nature of the

building is so that we can number one help help

our employees and their families understand what they've been exposed

to if anything throughout this

And number two develop mitigation strategies because this is a

very large building

Uh and we need to be in a position so

that when we're done with this work we can work

with EPA to make sure that the building can be

reoccupied

And and renovated to be reoccupied

Do you see that happening in the future People going

back into the building Yes

I mean but I don't know that I mean I

don't have the answers

Keely I don't know what's the source I don't know

how significant the source is how expensive it will be

to retrofit the building to mitigate the source

All the renovations that will be required and all of

those things will be considered when we make decisions about

the future of the building

NC state has been on the record several times saying

they're not gonna just blanket test any you know all

the buildings for P CBS now

But the EPA says that if a building was built

between the fifties and eighties it probably does have P

CBS in it

Um I just wanna read you some of the I

mean the short answer Keeley is we're gonna follow the

guidelines of the Federal agency

EPA has no guidelines about internal uh interior testing of

buildings unless you're going through the process of renovation and

removing material that's suspected to have P CBS in it

Uh You probably know that EPA only recently came out

with new guidelines February 24th to be precise and those

guidelines

Now for the first time actually talk about uh the

process of testing for and potentially removing material that has

that has P CBS in it

So I've instructed our Department of Health and Environmental Safety

Now to go back re evaluate all of our protocols

associated with renovation and repair and make sure that we're

consistent with the new EPA guidelines and that's under that's

going on right now

But there's so many people who have this anxiety now

given what's happened or we think may have happened at

PO Hall

These are buildings that were built between five years of

po Hall Sullivan Hall Bone Hall Metcalf Cara Hall

These are all student residence buildings

Why not Why not test them again

We're gonna develop the protocols where we're testing in a

in a way that makes sense that's consistent with what

people believe

What the th this is an evolving science

I mean uh right now EPA is just now starting

to come out with guidelines around P CBS in interior

space and there still are no requirements for testing

That doesn't mean we won't test historically we've always any

time there are concerns that people are expressing concerns about

ability which is why we did what we did this

time to Poe that will go in and try to

evaluate it

And and now we have new guidelines from the EPA

that will help direct that work

And and we will as we as we develop the

protocols around those guidelines we'll go in and make sure

we understand the environment

Why wait to test though Because we don't know the

environment within Po Hall

We don't know the source

We don't know how it got there

But we're going to know and when we do that

will help inform the way that'll help inform the way

we behave with all of the other buildings going forward

But you tested your question Keely you did

I'm asking another you tested po Hall in October and

November and within a month it was closed so you

could act fast if there was a problem somewhere else

and we're not aware of a problem somewhere else

Ok

WRL

And I imagine many other news agencies have asked for

the uh records of the last 10 years of any

time NC state is tested for P CBS on the

campus

You have yet to release those

Why not release that Um I I can't answer that

I mean I know our public records office is overwhelmed

um with requests

Uh There's there's no reason why we wouldn't release them

so I'm not sure where they are in the process

This is a receipt for PC B testing from 2023

for this building

What were the you have yet to release those results

publicly It's just the receipt showing testing was done sir

Do you know if your office in the building Do

you know what the results were I mean I'm sure

that there was uh every time we're testing to repair

a window or to replace a window we test for

P CBS and caulking and it's not because we're necessarily

concerned about uh the exterior of the building

But we're concerned to make sure that if we're removing

material we're removing it in a way that's consistent with

EPA guidelines

Obviously as you've mentioned testing is expensive

Is that really the biggest barrier to test $480 is

not a barrier So again why not test other buildings

So many people have the question Keely we're gonna test

other buildings when we understand what what gave rise to

them

Why do you need to know the situation in Po

Hall in order to test other buildings that were built

around the same time we're going to follow EPA guidelines

But you said yourself there really isn't much guidelines in

the EPA for testing inside

You're a flagship university and very very well regarded

Why not use this Po Hall situation as an opportunity

to set a template for other institutions that may go

through this How do you feel that you are Well

we are by helping them understand how to evaluate the

current uh guidelines coming from EPA

We're sort of the first to go through this in

among all the state agencies actually

So our group has been in constant communication with other

universities in the UN C system and with other state

agencies

This has not been standard Protocol Keeley for any university

or any campus or any state agency to test for

P CBS

Other than what we've always done again maybe more so

than many to test for P CBS and caulking around

windows because we knew it was uh used frequently in

caulking

And that's been really to make sure that when we're

removing a window or we're replacing caulking they were disposing

of that appropriately and we're protecting the health of the

workers that are uh that are removing it or applying

it

You say you know we can't act on things until

we really

No

And I can feel in your answers that um and

I don't want to put words in your mouth but

that you think that you're moving as quickly as you

can to get these answers

We have so many examples of like I've shown you

the EPA not being able to get a hold of

NC state

I'm not aware of that

I've told you that I just showed it to you

Well yeah but that's the first I've I've seen of

it

I want to show you this this is from an

administrator at NC State

He was he was the one who was emailed in

August about the concerns of heightened cancer within uh PO

Hall that was on in August 1st on September 18th

He sent that Po Hall employee this email I reached

out to the University's Office of Environmental Health and Safety

After a couple of times of running into a dead

end I finally spoke to somebody that was five weeks

after she said hey can you do something about it

So we're not only seeing delays from NC state with

external agencies but also internal agencies

This is our last what you have to say for

that

Uh I'm I'm not aware of that

I mean I was aware that employees had made uh

expressed concerns about uh cancer within the building

I do know that when environmental health and safety understood

that that they reached out to D HHS and D

HHS suggested we re reach out to Nage

Uh We ultimately started testing for P CBS

We got those results back late October early November

As soon as I was informed of that we made

the decision to close the building down

Can I ask two more questions We were told 30

minutes

Are you worried about lawsuits I do I worry about

lawsuits

I'm a I'm a chancellor of a university

We have uh litigation that we're involved in all the

time but I don't manage based on lawsuits

I manage based on keeping the university operational and protecting

the health and safety of our employees

We close this building down not because we were worried

about lawsuits but just the that we closed it down

because we wanted to understand the environment so that we

could help our employees understand what they had worked in

for several years

And and we wanted to understand what we needed to

do to fix this if you're not testing buildings and

you're not responding to people who are no longer say

we weren't testing buildings

I said we need to understand what this situation is

We need to understand the new guidelines that just came

out less than a few weeks ago

From EPA

We need to develop the protocols consistent with those guidelines

So any testing we do is consistent with EPA regulations

What can you say to parents who are sending their

kids from all over the world to this university without

proactively testing buildings without providing students with the ability to

test PC B that we're gonna do everything we can

and we are doing everything we can to keep this

university a safe and healthy environment for all of our

students and all of our employees

And that's been true for over 100 and 40 years

Are you worried about the reputation of this university I'm

I'm not worried about the reputation of this university because

I know we're doing the right thing and we're doing

it based on sound data and we'll be providing all

of our employees with sound information

All right

That's fine

Thank you

Yep