PARIS — SAD 17 officials say they are keeping on top of undocumented and potentially dangerous chemicals in the school despite the lack of state and federal funding that was once available to help with teacher training and hazardous chemical clean-outs.

“We need to get it done so we do,” Facilities Director Director Nelson Baillargeon said.

The issue of stockpiled hazardous chemicals surfaced last month when two chemicals were found in a physics lab at Oxford Hills Comprehensive High School in Paris. The chemicals were identified as bromine and iodine and had gone unnoticed for at least seven years, according to Superintendent Rick Colpitts.

They were removed to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-approved site in Tennessee at a cost of $5,200 because they had expired dates.

School officials said all chemicals in the school district are controlled, managed and locked in safety cabinets, but occasionally some go undetected for years because classroom use and teachers’ knowledge about the substances’ location changes.

That is why SAD 17 does annual inspections to make sure no potentially harmful chemical is improperly stored, Baillargeon said. Custodians are trained in-house to identify potentially harmful chemicals, he said.

“I try and get through the schools early in the year,” Baillargeon said. “I look in all classrooms to make sure nothing’s there that shouldn’t be.”

Every public school in the state is required to submit an annual inventory of hazardous chemicals kept on site to the Department of Education and take other measures to ensure proper and safe storage of chemicals, but most funding for staff training dried up years ago.

It is this statewide lack of training in public schools that concerns former DEP administrator Ann Pistell. In 2002, she coordinated a two-year program designed to get mercury out of Maine schools which instead uncovered stockpiles of potentially dangerous chemicals.

The Maine Department of Environmental Protection clean-out program that Pistell supervised uncovered radioactive materials in more than a dozen schools, according to newspaper reports at the time. They included old lecture bottles of bromine and chlorine — chemicals used to make mustard gas.

Pistell told the Sun Journal that the danger may still exist in school districts across the state.

“Unfortunately, the Maine legislature never allocated funds to continue the program and now that a decade or so has passed, one can be sure that many more Maine schools have expired, dangerous chemicals on their shelves,” she said in an email to the Sun Journal.

Pistell said there were extensive teacher trainings sessions during the mercury clean-out program. The trainings were a combined effort of the Maine Department of Environmental Protection, Safety Works from the Department of Labor, and the Department of Education, she said. Training was offered free of charge to all schools, including private ones.

“The Department of Education requires the submission of annual chemical inventories but, to my knowledge, has nobody qualified, such as a chemist, to review them,” Pistell said. “There is no enforcement. As I experienced firsthand, some teachers will be diligent and others will not, either due to lack of time, motivation or budget.”

Chemicals are commonly used and stored in Maine’s public schools in areas such as science labs, custodial closets, maintenance shops and vocational education classrooms. They are routinely used to clean schools, in automotive repair and bodywork courses and science courses.

Pistell said that in her opinion, state government experts should continue teacher trainings, review inventories every year and conduct enforcement and random school checks.

“What is more important than the safety of our children?” she asked. “As a society, we are all so concerned with school safety yet may overlook the real possibility of dangerous chemicals sitting on many school shelves.”

Julie Rabinowitz, director of communications for the Department of Labor, said Wednesday that Safety Works provides free consultation and training services on any workplace issue, including handling hazardous chemicals in the workplace, for any public entity, including public schools.

ldixon@sunjournal.com

Copy the Story Link