Updates on Poe Hall

Good morning,

Thank you for your continued patience as we wait for a report on the building environment in Poe Hall from our independent environmental testing consultants. At this time, we expect to receive results from the most recent round of testing in the next few weeks. Once we have those results, we will share them with you directly. We are committed to getting and sharing data-informed answers.

In the meantime, we want to share some information about what to expect as we move forward regarding testing in the building, potential renovation needs and item retrieval plans.

Building Testing

The building assessment that has been underway since late 2023 has been conducted by an environmental consulting firm, Geosyntec. This work is focused on understanding the building environment and informing decisions about remediation of any sources of PCBs, in line with guidance and recommendations from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Information we learn from this work will help inform the timeline for and decisions about any needed renovations for the building.

It’s important to distinguish the environmental testing from the separate Health Hazard Evaluation (HHE) currently underway, led by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH). NIOSH, a part of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is a federal governmental research agency that provides research and recommendations about preventing work-related injury and illness. More information is available here. 

As NIOSH conducts the HHE, we will provide them with the most recent environmental testing results from Geosyntec. It is our understanding that NIOSH does not comment on open HHEs.

Item Retrieval

Once we receive results from the most recent round of testing, we will revisit the item retrieval process. We know that many personal items still remain in the building, and we will work to get those — and all other items that remain in the building — out as soon as possible with guidance from the EPA. 

Next Steps

When we have the next round of building testing results from Geosyntec, we will share those with you and will be in close contact about next steps. Thank you again for your continued patience. We’ll be in touch as soon as we have more information.

Thank you,

Warwick Arden
Executive Vice Chancellor and Provost

Charles Maimone
Executive Vice Chancellor for Finance and Administration