February 2010
Indoor Contamination of Office Building - Japan
PCB-containing equipment stored in the basement of a mid-rise office Building was found to
have leaked and or spilled during equipment removal from the building.
Routine post-removal sampling found detectable levels of PCBs in wipe samples on
the basement floor, some of which exceeded the Japanese clearance standard.
Subsequent investigation also found that PCBs had been tracked to various
common areas throughout the building including elevator lobbies and stairwells.
ChemRisk assisted in the evaluation of human health risk from the PCBs by
– designing an indoor surface sampling strategy that would provide the data necessary to support a risk assessment.
– Conducted a quantitative human health risk assessment of building occupants which informed the clean-up requirements for the building.
– Risk communication to building occupants/tenants.
This analysis summarizes the strengths and weaknesses of the existing information
and identifies key data gaps. In addition to a detailed analysis of the NIOSH reports,
we reviewed the PUBMED and MEDLINE databases for studies that reported animal
toxicology and epidemiology results for diacetyl and artificial butter, and known or suspected causes of OB.
ChemRisk’s human health risk assessment was novel because there are
no guidelines/regulations requiring risk assessments of
contaminated buildings in Japan. Our risk assessment
was ultimately accepted by the City of Osaka