On July 19, attorneys working on behalf of those who developed cancer after spending time in a university building made a deal with N.C. State: The university would allow them to conduct their own testing of the building, and in exchange, the results of the testing would be confidential.
The resolution ended a four-month-long fight to get into the building. Spearheading the battle was Darren Masier, a former N.C. State graduate student who petitioned the court to gain access to Poe Hall after the university refused to allow large-scale independent testing of the building.
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Records show N.C. State paid outside counsel Kilpatrick Townsend & Stockton $330,000 to represent the university. Attorneys for the firm argued the university was already conducting its own testing of Poe Hall and that Masier’s claim was a workers' compensation issue and did not belong in Wake County court.
In May, Wake County Superior Court Judge Hoyt Tessener granted Masier access to Poe Hall, asking the university’s attorneys, “Why is more testing a bad thing?”
Attorneys working on behalf of the university appealed the decision.A group of appellate judges upheld the decision. The university’s attorneys then appealed it to the state’s highest court. By mid-July, the parties came to their own agreement outside of court and filed to dismiss the case. WRAL News has asked N.C. State for a copy of the new agreement.
The testing started on Monday and will last for a week. More than a dozen people representing crews from N.C. State and multiple environmental testing companies were seen going in and out of Poe Hall on Monday.
In a statement to WRAL News, a spokesperson for N.C. State wrote that the university was “pleased to have reached an agreement with all law firms.”
"It's a long time coming, but it's here," said Sandy Alford, a former student who spent time at Poe Hall and was diagnosed with cancer.
Alford hopes more testing will help shed light on just how exposed she and thousands of students and staff were to PCBs.
"Hopefully a more thorough look will give more thorough information," Alford said.
How we got here: Testing spearheaded by cancer patients a go
Masier and a close former Poe Hall colleague are both battling leukemia, diagnosed in the spring of 2023, just months before Poe Hall closed. They are two of the 210 people reporting to WRAL News that they developed cancer after spending time in Poe Hall.
In November 2023, N.C. State closed Poe Hall after testing revealed high levels of PCBs inside the building. The chemicals, once commonly found in a myriad of building materials including paint, caulk, insulation and machinery, are now linked to cancer.
In December 2023, the university announced it had hired Geosyntec Consultants to conduct more sampling of the former education and psychology building. In an interview, Chancellor Randy Woodson told WRAL News that the university would be able to provide more health guidance after the building testing was completed, adding that they were testing the building with “human health in mind.”
Records obtained by WRAL News show the university paid Geosyntec Consultants $493,910.78 between May and the start of the agreement. The university announced the results of Geosyntec’s latest testing in June and identified the building’s HVAC ducts as the primary source of PCBs. The testing took around six months to complete.
Some scientists familiar with PCB testing were critical of Geosyntec, stating that the firm did not take enough samples in the building. According to the firm’s report, it took fewer than 300 samples in the 7-story building, far fewer than the 1,000 samples Dr. Robert Herrick, a former Harvard faculty member, said would be necessary for a building that size.
David Kirby, an attorney working on behalf of the potential PCB victims, stated they could take 1,000 samples in a week.
“You really would need to take around 30 samples per classroom to understand if and how humans were being exposed to PCBs,” said Dr. Keri Hornbuckle, a scientist who specializes in PCBs inside buildings.
Masier and others personally connected to Poe Hall continued to push for testing that wasn’t funded by the university, telling WRAL News they did not trust the results of Geosyntec’s report.
“It says right on Geosyntec’s website that they aim to reduce liability to their client, and in this case, their client is N.C. State,” Masier said.
Continued push for third-party, non-university funded investigation
By the time Masier filed his petition in court to gain access to Poe Hall, distrust over the university’s perceived mishandling of the crisis was strong.
- In February, WRAL reported that the university had quietly ended its participation in a federal health investigation. Days later, faculty members of the education department held a vote of no confidence against Chancellor Woodson and Vice Chancellor Warwick Arden. The university asked to reopen the investigation the day the votes were passed. The Department of Labor also reopened its own investigation into Poe Hall around that time.
- In March, the university disclosed that it had tested the exterior caulking at Poe Hall in 2018. The PCBs found in the caulk were hundreds of times higher than what the Environmental Protection Agency deems safe.
- In April, Masier filed his petition.
- In May, WRAL reported that administrators inside Poe Hall had asked the school to test the air quality in Poe Hall as far back as 2012 and 2010.
- By June, the case to get into Poe Hall was at the state Supreme Court. Attorneys working on behalf of the university had appealed two lower court decisions to allow Masier’s testers into the building. N.C. State argued the matter belonged in the industrial court, as a workers' compensation complaint.
- In July, Masier’s attorneys and the university came to an agreement allowing Masier’s team in. The evidence gathered could pave the way for future lawsuits against the university and perhaps Monsanto.
What will this round of testing look like?
Because of the confidentiality agreement, information on what this testing will entail is not readily available. However, documents and testimony filed in court this spring indicate people working on behalf of Masier plan to test “locations that are representative” of “exposure.” In other words, where sick workers and students said they were in the building.
Masier told WRAL News that this was a crucial step and something the university had not done. In a review of the location of the Geosyntec samples, WRAL News found that in several cases, the offices and rooms where people who later developed cancer had spent time were not sampled.
“We just want the truth,” Masier said. “We just want to know what we were really exposed to.”
The testers will then send collected samples to “a certified laboratory experienced in analyzing PCBs,” according to documents previously filed in court.
You can find complete and comprehensive coverage of the Poe Hall investigation on pugongyingbo.com.