Document 0549P, a risk assessment, is in effect the state's license to dose state workers with two picograms of dioxin each day in the state office building in Binghamton, NY, where a fire in 1981 spread PCBs and dioxins, which are very similar chemicals. At the time, Dr. Hawley and his colleagues assumed there was a no-effect level for dioxin exposure. They assumed PCBs were much less toxic then their chemical cousins. They made many other assumptions. Those two picograms of dioxin that people would consume each day would be left behind in the building after the cleanup, which, after all, could only be so effective.
Cleanups cost a lot of money.
Dioxin is often accurately described as one of the most toxic poisons on Earth, but this does not do it justice. When the fires and explosions occurred in New Paltz, Dr. Hawley dusted off 0549P and applied its statistical analyses to Bliss, Capen, Gage and Scudder Halls, and the Coykendall Science Building and Parker Theatre. The license to kill came to visit New Paltz. So did a lot of guys wearing air tanks and moon suits, which was the more obvious clue that something was up. Capen and Gage halls were reopened just a month after the disaster, with students walking in on the first day as moonsuit guys walked out, practically touching shoulders as they crossed paths.