A potentially hazardous chemical is being used to strip paint from school windows, according to workers assigned to a city project.
A painter said a supervisor told him to hide the chemical from inspectors when he worked at PS 131 in the Jamaica Estates section of Queens last year.
“He said we’re not allowed to use [it],” recalled the painter.
“The next sentence out of his mouth was, ‘But I have it here.’ . . . He had four five-gallon cans with the hazmat sheet removed so nobody would know what it was.”
His account was backed up by painter Kenneth Santucci.
“They kept the empty cans and the full cans hidden at all times,” said Santucci. “They said if an inspector comes, don’t let him see it.”
Anyone who complained was yanked from the job, being done by a private contractor for the School Construction Authority, added Santucci.
He said that when the facade of the school building was power-hosed, the chemical ran down the side and into the ground.
Margie Feinberg, a spokeswoman for the Department of Education, disputed the painters’ account.
She said the chemical, sold under the brand name Rock Miracle, is approved for school use but wasn’t employed at PS 131.
Another paint stripper, called Peel Away, was used, she said.
“There was a polyurethane dropcloth put in the area. There was no seepage,” Feinberg said.
Rock Miracle contains dichloromethane, which the US Labor Department says can cause “mental confusion, lightheadedness, nausea, vomiting and headache” if the vapors are inhaled.
The feds also consider it a possible carcinogen and say long-term exposure can have “adverse effects on the heart, central nervous system or liver.”
The manufacturer insists its product is perfectly safe and notes that it has been sold for years without problems.
