CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The health investigation into Poe Hall at North Carolina State University has ended due to federal workforce cuts by the Trump administration, Chancellor Randy Woodson announced Wednesday.

The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health had been conducting a health hazard evaluation, an evaluation of a workplace done at no cost to the employer. Such evaluations are meant to determine whether workers are exposed to hazardous materials and whether these exposures are responsible for health risks, illness or injury, or harmful conditions. The agency and NC State reached a “mutual agreement” last February to do the evaluation at Poe Hall.

Poe Hall has been closed for nearly 18 months after university officials shuttered it, citing preliminary test results that showed the presence of PCBs, or polychlorinated biphenyls, on various surfaces throughout the building.

PCBs are toxic, man-made chemicals that were banned from being produced in the United States in 1979. They are considered to be “probable human carcinogens,” according to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. They also are known to have a myriad of other negative health effects.

NIOSH’s evaluation, if it had gone forward, may have provided clarity as to whether exposure to toxic chemicals in the building was responsible for employees’ illness, such as cancer.

Woodson wrote in his message to campus that university officials were notified this week that NIOSH’s investigation had ended due to reduction-in-force efforts at the agency. The Associated Press reported earlier this month that NIOSH was estimated to have lost 850 of its roughly 1,000 employees, hollowing out the agency as part of massive cuts across the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services since President Donald Trump took office.

Further, Woodson wrote, officials with the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services informed the university “all HHEs across the state have been halted because of these federal cuts.”

NCDHHS spokesperson Summer Tonizzo said in a statement Thursday that the agency “has not received any formal notification from federal partners regarding the halt of Health Hazard Evaluations,” but is “aware that HHEs that haven’t yet been completed are being terminated.”

“NCDHHS and other states depend on the expertise at NIOSH for workplace cancer concerns because the funding and expertise to support this work is with the federal government,” Tonizzo said.

Testing at Poe Hall

The decision to open the NIOSH-led evaluation last year followed an initial health hazard evaluation being closed while the university used a private environmental consultant to conduct additional testing in the building. University officials had hoped to pause the first evaluation while the consulting firm collected its samples, but NIOSH did not offer a “mechanism” for pausing its work, Woodson told The News & Observer at the time.

Woodson wrote Wednesday that university officials would keep the NC State community informed about further updates.

“I know that this news may be disappointing, especially as we have been awaiting results,” Woodson wrote of the evaluation ending.

Last summer, additional test results from Poe Hall showed that the PCBs originated — as university leaders had said was likely the case — from the building’s HVAC system. But the results also showed that levels of the chemicals in the air, where they pose the greatest health risks, were found to be below exposure levels recommended by the EPA for school environments.

Still, federal regulations require any materials with concentrations of PCBs higher than 500 parts per million (ppm) to be removed from buildings once they are discovered. The early-June test results last year showed PCB materials in the building had concentrations ranging from 0.91 to 53,000 ppm.

Weeks after the university shared those results, Woodson said university officials had decided to remove the HVAC system and other building materials to remedy the presence of the toxic chemicals.

State lawmakers have shown interest in helping the university fix the issues in Poe Hall, earmarking millions of dollars last year for the rehabilitation and renovation of the building. The state Senate proposed, in its budget plan released last week, authorizing an additional $180 million for the project.

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