New York City's 10-year plan to identify and replace light fixtures in schools that are leaking toxic chemicals is too slow and not comprehensive enough, U.S. EPA said Friday.

After initially praising the city when it announced its plan last month as part of a wider energy efficiency effort, EPA is now rejecting the city's 10-year timeline and pushing for a shorter turnaround. How much shorter, though, is still being discussed within the city, said Judith Enck, the agency's regional administrator.

"Ten years is too long," Enck said Friday. "From our inspections, we've found that there's a problem with leaking light ballasts and I'd be concerned with the problem lingering for a long period of time."

The issue of replacing old fluorescent light fixtures became a pressing one for the city after a pilot study begun last year found leaking light ballasts to be a major source of high levels of toxic PCBs in air samples taken from schools. Spot inspections of schools by EPA this year found that the problems pervade the school system.

Under pressure from federal officials and worried parents, city officials announced a plan last month to spend $702 million to replace light fixtures in nearly 800 school buildings. But school advocates said PCB contamination was too urgent of a problem to wait a decade to complete (Mireya Navarro, New York Times, March 11). -- AS