
I am not a writer, so forgive my inexperience but picture the intro: the explosion, what you experienced on site on the day following, the cleanup by state employees without hazmat suits; the 50 million dollar bungled cleanup; the hidden danger to students who lived in the dorms after, your dogged research; your initial articles, the temperature controlled storage of documents at your personal expense. It seems to me, the hook is your response when our office contacted you in May of 2020, along the lines of, “I have been waiting for this call” — We are talking about 29 years later!!!
— Attorney Ralph Kirk
In 2021, I served as an expert witness in a wrongful death disability case involving an employee of the State University of New York at New Paltz who was exposed to PCBs while working and developed multiple illnesses. This matter related back to a PCB contamination incident on Dec. 29, 1991 at the time covered by Student Leader News Service. I provided the claimant’s counsel with documents from the State of New York files obtained under the Freedom of Information Law, photographs that I had taken in December 1991 and January 1992, and expert testimony. The case was decided in favor of the claimant’s widow and estate. I received this letter from their attorney on June 3, 2021. — efc