The 20 staffers at the Connecticut U.S. Attorney’s office are used to winter snow showers outside their Bridgeport office, but alleged asbestos flakes falling inside their workspace at the 43-year-old Brien McMahon Federal Building are prompting them to relocate, The Connecticut Post reported ^[1] Saturday.

Brien McMahon Federal Building (Gov)

A spokesperson for the General Services Administration, which manages federal buildings, told The Post that asbestos in the building does not pose a health hazard to the office’s staffers. In 1983, the GSA marked the federal building as one of the 15 worst for flaking asbestos, according to The Post. The GSA considered removing the asbestos by 1990, but the plan never received congressional approval, The Post said.

“Everyone knows it’s there,” Assistant U.S. Attorney John Hughes, chief of the Civil Division in Connecticut and head of the relocation committee, told The Post. “But it’s not like there’s a whole blanket covering the ceiling tiles.”

Hughes told The Post that it will take at least a year until the office permanently moves into a new space. He said the ideal office space would be near the courthouse and have room to accommodate an expanding office staff.

Acting U.S. Attorney Nora Dannehy has allowed members of the Bridgeport office to work out of the New Haven office in the mean time.