Confirmed: Atlantic Yards is Toxic

Locals in the footprint of the Atlantic Yards construction site have long felt the project was toxic – turns out, it really is.

A recent construction update from developer Forest City Ratner revealed that vials of arsenic were uncovered on the site – the same highly toxic metal famously used to murder lonely old men in the Joseph Kesselring play Arsenic and Old Lace.

Though developers expected to find an abundance on toxins on the site – including metals such as arsenic – the Empire State Development Corporation said that finding actual vials of the stuff on a construction site is highly unusual.

“It is suspected that the vials were from an old pharmacy,” said Elizabeth Mitchell, a spokesperson for ESDC, the state agency that oversees the project.

“Elevated arsenic concentrations may be encountered at urban and agricultural sites due to past industrial and agricultural uses; it is unusual, however, to encounter vials containing arsenic concentrations.”

Mitchell added that the pharmacy was located on the site between roughly 1926 and 1965.

The levels of toxicity of the arsenic powder in the vials tested at 148 milligrams per liter – a concentration lethal enough to kill if ingested.

Soil levels of arsenic, however, tested well below the Environmental Protection Agency’s regulatory limit.

Just how many vials were in the earth is unknown. Once workers uncovered a few of them, the construction workers disposed of the entire "pile of soil," Mitchell said via e-mail.

The toxin is expected to be be transported to a disposal facility in Michigan within three weeks.