(BUFFALO, NEW YORK) – After five Employees who all worked in the same New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) office building in Buffalo - and who all had been diagnosed with brain cancer - passed away, Public Employees Federation (PEF) Representatives are calling on the state to move current Workers to another building.

James Sacco, Jr. - who serves as PEF’s Chief Steward at the state’s DEC Region 9 Office in Downtown Buffalo and who represents 125 Union-represented state Workers in the region, is also asking for a further investigation after a sixth Worker developed the same cancer.

Some who were either diagnosed and/or died were represented by PEF and the Civil Service Employees Association (CSEA).  Another, a non-represented/executive staff Employee, died in the early 2000s, Sacco said.  All were in their 40s and 50s.

Sacco, who has served as New York State PEF Health and Safety Committee Co-Chairman for the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation since 2011, made the following Letter to the Editor to the PEF COMMUNICATOR available to WNYLaborToday.com:

In March 2019, an Employee of the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation (DEC) working at 270 Michigan Avenue in Buffalo learned that he had brain cancer.   

He was the sixth DEC Employee working at this location to be diagnosed with this disease.  

In 2013, after the fifth Employee to be diagnosed with brain cancer passed away, the New York State Department of Health performed an investigation and Cancer Incidence Study at the DEC office. 

When the Health Department reported the results of the study, they told Employees the number of brain cancers in the office was a statistical abnormality.  

In response to the sixth brain cancer diagnosis this past year, DEC Management requested the Health Department perform a second Indoor Air Quality Investigation. 

This study was more rigorous than the study done in 2013 and used testing/sampling methods that DEC/PEF Engineers and Technicians had originally recommended for the 2013 study.   

DEC/PEF Engineers and Technicians found that the 2019 study results detected four chemical contaminants in the air that exceeded Health Department Matrices (values), indicating the source of these contaminants should be identified and cleaned up. 

At this time the fate of the office is in flux. 

The office lease has expired - however, the current plan is to remain in the building and consolidate all Employees onto the first floor.  

This proposal would create office space in former commercial spaces that PEF feels may be the source of the cancer-causing contaminate.  

Thus, many PEF Members feel that it is unsafe to remain in the building.  

In addition to the concerns about the known contaminants, the building has a poor air handling system that has, at times, allowed odors such as gasoline and perchlorethylene to spread through the DEC workspace. 

Similarly, the sanitary/storm sewer is outdated which in heavy rainstorms can result in storm water and sewer water flooding the first floor.

DEC-PEF Members appreciate management’s efforts to protect Workers’ health and now urge DEC and OGS to work together to relocate Workers to a more suitable and safe location as quickly as possible.

In an interview with WNYLaborToday.com, Sacco said the DEC Employees had “complained for the past several years” of odors that came from within the building. 

“There were ‘no’ seals on pipes and there were ‘a lot of different’ odors,” he told Your On-Line Labor Newspaper.  “There were ‘complaints about it for years.’”

PEF Representatives were not happy with the testing that occurred after a flood of complaints. 

“They ‘didn’t do enough.’  ‘We wanted more done.’  ‘It needed to be investigated further,’” Sacco said.

PEF is upset with what has transpired, but is hopeful now that the problem has been put in a public spotlight that something more will happen due to the fact there are still about 100 Workers employed and working inside the Michigan Avenue building.

“We were ‘shocked’ (about the deaths and the subsequent DEC brain cancer response of ‘statistical abnormality’),” Sacco told WNYLaborToday.com.  “We’re (now) ‘hoping for the best situation, but we will see what happens.’  ‘It’s our hope they move their Employees to another office instead of moving us to a first floor in the same building.’”