This story originally published online at NC Newsline.
One year after the closure of Poe Hall at North Carolina State University, students are demanding more action from the school’s administration to address the issue of PCBs on campus, which are linked to breast cancer.
PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyl, were found with levels up to 38 times greater than EPA standards at Poe Hall last December.
But the university hasn’t done enough to address the issue since then, students say.
The Campus Community Alliance for Environmental Justice and the NCSU Grad Workers Union delivered a petition to the institution Tuesday afternoon to express their continued concern over the health and wellbeing of campus community members.
Organizers circulated a list of six demands to Chancellor Randy Woodson beginning in March, which has received 1,276 signatures to date.
These demands include asking the university to identify and contact faculty, staff, and students who have had extensive exposure to PCB chemicals in Poe Hall, regardless of their current employment or student status at the university.
The petition also demands that the university fully compensate all current and former Poe occupants for relevant short and long-term health screenings, as well as medical costs for those who have been diagnosed with cancer.
In addition, the petitioners asked NC State to keep Poe Hall closed until it is independently confirmed that the building no longer poses a danger in regard to PCBs.
Upon delivering the petition to the chancellor’s office, the students are giving Woodson 30 days to meet the six requests.
“We’re not asking, we’re demanding today,” public history master’s student Celine Shay said.
Holladay Hall, which contains the chancellor’s office, was tested for PCBs in 2023, but Woodson told WRAL in March that he doesn’t know why or what the results of the tests revealed.
Following initial remarks from speakers, a group of about 20 students marched from Poe Hall toward Holladay Hall to deliver the petition to Woodson. Along the way, they shouted chants asking for action.
Eric Martineau, a senior studying environmental science and plant biology, said he was disappointed by the modest turnout for the event but thinks it was a marketing issue.
“It’s not that people don’t care about this, it’s that people don’t know they should care,” he said.
Martineau attended a meeting on Monday with about 60 people and was the only one from that group to join in delivering the petition.
Upon arriving at Holladay Hall, students found the back entrance locked. Organizers were confused—they’d gone to the building the day before at around the same time and had no issue entering.
The group then circled around to the front entrance, which was also locked. Some students peered through the windows. A photographer from Technician, NC State’s student newspaper, said he could hear a police radio.
At one point, NC Newsline witnessed phones held up to a basement window through the blinds, documenting the students.
“Holladay Hall is locked at various times. We do have external signage with a number to call for deliveries and admittance to the building for meetings,” Maggie Thomas, the chancellor’s communications specialist, told NC Newsline in an email. “A call was not received this afternoon, but a petition was delivered to the Chancellor’s Office.”
Unable to deliver the petition directly to Woodson or his staff, the students settled for taping it above the doors of the front entrance. The unfurled petition was 34 pages long.
“This has gone beyond North Carolina, who has been signing this petition, because they all know that you shouldn’t have to work in and tolerate a toxic workplace,” marine science graduate student Hwa Huang said.
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