North Carolina State University students, faculty and staff could be just a few weeks away from getting the results of a federal health investigation into Poe Hall. There are also new details about plans to remove PCB contamination from the building and renovate it.

Both of those updates came during a virtual question-and-answer session on Aug. 29 with N.C. State Executive Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration Charles Maimone.

Other WRAL Top Stories

NC State's Poe Hall to be stripped to skeleton, rebuilt

The N.C. State community has been concerned about plans to renovate Poe Hall rather than tear it down completely and rebuild.

Maimone tried to ease those fears by going into more detail about the plans.

"When we look at what it takes to deconstruct that building and control for hazardous materials, abate it in a way that’s safe, remove all of that; you end up removing really the entire outer shell of the building," Maimone said during the virtual meeting with College of Education employees. "Then internally, wherever you have duct work you have to remove that as well. So, you’re taking out walls, you’re taking out aspects of the building that wouldn’t otherwise be necessarily affected in a different design of HVAC."

Maimone explained that the building will essentially be stripped down to its skeleton structure, which should not be contaminated by PCBs.

"However, it will be tested. I think the EPA standards for testing will be applied here," Maimone said.

He relayed that N.C. State’s engineering analysis found that the structure of Poe Hall is sound and by not tearing everything down and starting over, the university will save $13 million and about a year of construction time.

What’s needed now, according to Maimone, is permission and money from the North Carolina Legislature to move forward on the project.

"When there are additional updates regarding state funding or the timeline for building remediation, we will share those with our community," a spokesman said, and pointed back to the last update posted on the Poe Hall Updates website made on June 20.

"Once we start deconstruction of the building, to rebuild it is three years," Maimone said during the virtual meeting about the timeline after permission and funding is obtained.

Poe Hall employees still waiting to understand health hazards

Students, faculty and staff are worried about the cancer-causing PCBs they were exposed to inside Poe Hall and are hoping a Health Hazard Evaluation will give them more answers.

A Health Hazard Evaluation (HHE) is a free and independent investigation by the Center for Disease Control's (CDC) National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to identify workplace hazards and make recommendations to protect employees’ health.

"We put in the hands of NIOSH all material and evidence we had, all data associated with Poe and employment in Poe. And by employment, I mean every faculty member, staff member, graduate student and even undergraduate student employed at Poe," Maimone said. "We tried to reach back all the way to 1995 which was really the request that NIOSH had for us."

What is not clear is how much detail is in those records.

5 On Your Side has been in touch with hundreds of former Poe Hall students, faculty and staff and have not heard that any of them have been contacted by NIOSH as part of the HHE.

NIOSH has the right to review employee medical records or do their own physical examinations as part of their investigation. They can also make site visits and perform environmental tests.

WRAL News asked N.C. State if any of that has happened.

"N.C. State continues to cooperate with NIOSH on the agency's pending Health Hazard Evaluation. We’ve provided the agency with information as requested," a university spokesperson responded.

The same question was asked of the CDC.

"The health hazard evaluation (HHE) at Poe Hall is currently ongoing, and the HHE program does not comment on open evaluations," a spokesperson responded.

During the virtual question and answer session on Aug. 29, Maimone said N.C. State gave NIOSH investigators everything they wanted three weeks earlier. From that point, Maimone said results would take about two months to come back.

"I would expect that sometime in the fall semester we would get those results," Maimone said.

Even when the results do come back, they will not include any data from students who only took classes in Poe Hall.

“If you’re not an employee, NIOSH doesn’t necessarily include your information. Then you as a citizen of the state of North Carolina have the rights that you have to pursue compensation,” Maimone explained.

The final report from the HHE can make a determination about the potential effects of PCBs found in Poe Hall, but NIOSH does not have the authority to require N.C. State to take any particular action.

You can find complete and comprehensive coverage of WRAL's investigation into Poe Hall on pugongyingbo.com or by clicking here.

Recent coverage