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Foul air, mold threaten Metro students
Problem hits schools built air-tight during '70s energy crisis
Published Oct. 18, 2000

Environmental Consultants
Last summer, Saline Middle School spent $500,000 to remove
mold from ceiling tiles.
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What
parents can do
Advice varies depending on the type of mold found and the size of
the growth, but experts commonly advise: * Make a visual
inspection of areas where mold is likely to grow, including
basements, crawl spaces, carpets, ceiling tiles, insulation, and
heating and air conditioning units.
* If you suspect your house is contaminated, it
is best to have samples tested by trained professionals. Check
with your local health department, the Yellow Pages or www.envirocenter.com
for companies in your area.
* Serious mold removal problems may also best be
handled by professionals, but if you handle it yourself, you
should wear a respirator, goggles, rubber gloves and waterproof
boots. Open all windows in the home.
* Fix any leaks that caused the mold to grow.
Remove carpets, furniture and any items with absorbent material.
These items may have to be discarded if they are not dried
thoroughly within 24 hours.
* Stained or moldy ceiling tiles, carpet, wall
board and insulation should be replaced altogether. Watertight
surfaces such as kitchen floors should be cleaned with one cup of
laundry bleach mixed with one gallon of water.
* For information: call the Association of
Occupational and Environmental Clinics at (202) 347-4976, visit www.envirocenter.com
or e-mail questions to johanni2e@crisny.org.
Source: Dr. Eckardt Johanning and the Eastern
New York Occupational and Environmental Health Center
Symptoms
* Be alert for health complaints that could
signal a problem with indoor air quality, such as increased
absenteeism, allergic reactions, respiratory problems like asthma,
nosebleeds, eye irritation, rashes, headaches, lethargy, and
complaints about musty odors, especially if the symptoms fade
after the person leaves the school building or home.
* Some pollutants can cause serious health
problems. Long-term exposure to radon gas can cause lung cancer.
Young children or people with weakened immune systems can suffer
serious -- potentially fatal -- reactions to the mycotoxins in
some species of mold, with health problems ranging from brain
damage to bleeding lungs and blood-borne infections.
What schools can do
All schools, new or old, can experience indoor
air quality problems. The Environmental Protection Agency and the
American Lung Association are urging schools to take some simple
precautions to clear the air inside their buildings:
* Examine heating, air conditioning and
ventilation ducts to ensure they are clear of dust, mold and other
pollutants. Make sure that at least 20 percent of the air
circulating in the building is fresh air from outside.
* Look for telltale blacking stains on ceilings
and walls. Don't just remove one stained tile or paint over the
wall; look for the source of the moisture. Musty odors also signal
mold's presence.
* After floods or heavy rains, inspect the
property -- mold and mildew can begin sprouting anywhere from
three to 24 hours after a drenching. Once mold sprouts on porous
materials like ceiling tiles or wallboards, the only solution is
to remove the material -- bleach and cleaners can only clean the
surface, not the roots of the mold deep in the material.
* Inspect art rooms, labs and other potential
sources of toxins that could be released into the air. Consider
all potential irritants, from chalkboards to classroom pets. Even
having too many plants can raise humidity levels and trigger a
mold outbreak.
* Carpets are a rich growth medium for mold,
dust and allergens. Remove them, or inspect them frequently and
make sure you have the proper cleaning equipment, like vacuums
with special filters.
Mold varities
Molds are simple plants belonging to the fungus
family. Always present in the air, molds need moisture and warmth
to grow, as well as a food source -- like the ceiling tiles near a
school steam pipe, or the walls in a flooded basement. As it
grows, molds release vast quantities of spores, which can make
life miserable for people who are sensitive to them.
These are a few of the common molds that can
infest school buildings. Although most molds do not cause serious
illness, some can produce toxins that can infect the lungs,
bloodstream or brain, and most can trigger allergic reactions:
* Aspergillus flavus: a mold allergen and
potential cancer source that can cause serious, potentially fatal,
lung infections in people with weakened immune systems. Like the
other aspergillus strains, it is blue-green in color.
* Aspergillus fumigatus: a mold allergen
that can cause lung infections.
* Aspergillus versicolor: a very common
mold that forms on water-damaged building materials.
* Penicillium species: a common allergen,
blue-green in color, found on water-damaged building materials. It
can produce dangerous toxins.
* Fusarium species: molds that can
flourish in water damage, may produce potent toxins.
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By Jennifer Brooks
/ The Detroit News

HAMTRAMCK -- Linda Harrington was hospitalized 10 times before she
realized her school was poisoning her.
The ventilation system in the elderly Hamtramck
administration building hadn't worked in years, and for years she sat in a
pool of stale air, growing gradually more sensitive to everyday office
fumes and chemicals, until her body short-circuited.
"I developed multiple chemical sensitivities. I'm
on medications now, but without them I'm in trouble," said
Harrington, the school's director of bilingual education, Title I and
grant programs. She now works on the one side of the building that has
windows. "I'm OK if I stay at this side of the building, but if I
move around, I can't breathe. It's terrible."
The Hamtramck School District is just one of thousands
battling pollution inside the schoolhouse. In fact, the Environmental
Protection Agency, based on a random survey, estimates that half of the
nation's 88,000 schools may have problems with indoor air quality.
But that's just an estimate. No one knows how many
schools have problems because no one is responsible for monitoring school
air quality except the schools themselves. No state or federal laws
regulate indoor air quality in schools, so agencies like the EPA can only
suggest, not enforce, air standards inside buildings.
Schools are left with the job of trying to detect and
deal with a host of indoor contaminants that can range from radioactive
radon gas to potentially lethal strains of mold.
Last week, the University of Detroit Mercy relocated 106
students because of health concerns about the black mold that sprouted
near the steam pipes inside the walls of a North Quad dormitory.
Last summer, Saline Middle School in Washtenaw County
spent $500,000 to remove the same strain of mold from the ceiling tiles
above 10 classrooms after some staff complained that their allergies
flared up when they entered the building.
Last year, Grand Rapids closed four schools while
workers searched for the toxin that had sent seven teachers to the
hospital, complaining of nausea and dizziness. They found ventilation
shafts full of mold and other pollutants blowing directly into classrooms.
Poor ventilation, poor maintenance, even poorly stored
art supplies can release toxins. Poor ventilation makes it easier for
germs to spread, and pollutants in the air can trigger asthma, coughs,
headaches, rashes, allergic reactions and lethargy.
In fact, the Environmental Protection Agency now warns
schools that air quality can have as much of an effect on the learning
environment as the choice of textbooks or the nutrition content of school
lunches. The agency launched the Tools for Schools program, which leads
schools through steps they can take to clear the air.
Even innocent-looking classroom supplies can cause
problems.
"I told one teacher I know that I was allergic to
the fumes from the markers they use on the dry-erase board, and she said,
'That explains it! I have this one little girl in my class -- every time I
use the board, she puts her head down on the desk,' " Harrington
said.
EPA sounds alarm
Many schools' problems began during the energy crisis of
the '70s, when efforts to make schools more energy efficient reduced air
flow and aggravated air quality problems.
Ordinary homes and buildings have the same difficulties
with ventilation, mold or radon, but the EPA worries that school problems
are aggravated by crowded conditions (school occupancy levels are three to
four times higher than the average office building) and limited school
budgets.
The EPA sounded the alarm on the school air problem in
the 1990s, when the agency conducted a random survey in search of radon
contamination in schools. Of the 29 schools tested, most had inadequate
ventilation, and nearly one in five had at least one room with radon
levels higher than the EPA's recommended action level.
In Michigan, more than 40 public interest groups have
joined to form CHAMPPS, the Coalition for Healthy Air in Michigan's Public
and Private Schools. "(Indoor air quality) is becoming more and more
of a problem," CHAMPPS spokesman Mike London said. "We've been
working with a lot of schools with major problems."
Mold found in tiles
Twice, Saline Middle School called the Michigan
Department of Occupational Safety and Health to test the air, responding
to staff complaints that their allergies flared up when they entered the
building. Twice, the school got a clean bill of health.
In June, maintenance workers found a greenish-black mold
growing in the ceiling tiles above 10 classrooms. The children were sent
home for summer vacation with notes to their parents while workers in
hazard suits cleaned it up.
There are no reports of children falling ill because of
the mold.
"There was never any question of what to do. Health
and safety came first," Saline Supt. Ellen Ewing said. "We kept
hearing from staffers who said, 'I don't want to go back to that
building."
The school caught the mold -- Stachybotrys chartarum --
before its spores went airborne. Those spores contain toxins that can
cause severe lung damage and neurological problems in very young children
and people with weakened immune systems.
Saline parent Cathy Synko said she had never heard any
complaints about the building's air until her daughter, now in seventh
grade, brought a note at the end of the last school year. "My
daughter did mention that there was a funny smell in some of the rooms.
There were good smelling rooms and bad smelling rooms."
The Okemos Public Schools in Ingham County also beat
back a Stachybotrys outbreak this summer. But even less toxic molds can
cause severe health problems, including allergic reactions, asthma,
rashes, digestive problems and chronic fatigue.
"I think mold is where asbestos was 10 or 15 years
ago," said Tim Fagan of Coach's Carpet Care & Catastrophe
Cleaning, one of four firms that worked back-to-back 10-hour shifts all
summer long to clear the air in Saline. The company is now fielding
hundreds of calls from homeowners battling mold after the Wayne County
floods.
"Except asbestos is inert," Fagan added.
"Mold is alive, it rides the air currents. (Mold spores) can implant
themselves on the lungs and grow."
Poor maintenance is the main cause of poor air quality.
London said he has heard of instances where building maintenance workers
changed air filters for the first time ever after hearing about the clean
air drive. For schools with limited budgets and pressing needs,
housekeeping often seems like the least painful budget cut.
Hamtramck has hired an air quality company to inspect
its buildings, and it has already moved to replace the faulty heating
system that was choking the air in the high school. Officials say they are
working to improve other buildings.
It's cheaper to prevent air problems than to clean up
after a full-blown crisis. Most of the suggestions on the EPA checklist
are low-cost, some as simple as moving the book cases and furniture that
often block classroom ventilation ducts.
In Oakland County, the Rochester Community Schools
responded to a mold outbreak six years ago by drawing up a comprehensive
environmental policy of its own, which deals with everything from
meticulous housekeeping to periodic testing for everything from spores to
radon to carbon dioxide.
"About six or seven years ago, we were going
through some of our buildings," district spokeswoman Jennifer Woliung
said. "And we found some things that made us think -- this is not a
real good thing to have around our kids."
So far, more than 2,000 schools have requested the EPA's
Indoor Air Quality Tools for Schools Kit. The EPA relies on voluntary
reports from schools, and on evidence, including the fact that childhood
asthma has increased 60 percent in the 1980s.
The EPA's own estimate that half of the schools in the
nation are polluted comes from a 1995 General Accounting Office estimate,
which randomly surveyed schools across the nation and came back with that
estimate. Since no agency is responsible for monitoring or cleaning up
school air, no one is responsible for keeping exact tallies.
Toxic Mold
Is Toxic Mold In Your Home?
Waldport Family Fighting Mold In Their House
WALDPORT, Ore., Posted 7:41 p.m. PDT May 24, 2000 -- Since
airing the Home
Sick Home series earlier this month, KOIN 6 News has received calls
from many families who are fighting potentially deadly mold in their
homes.
A
family of six is renting a home in Waldport, where they say that mold is
making them sick.
Jim Roberston and his son both suffered seizures recently. They
identified black mold growing on the windows and in the garage, and
connected the two.
KOIN reports that Roberston's landlord cleaned the mold from the house,
but it soon came back, growing through the new paint.
Lab
tests have uncovered seven types of mold in the home, including nearly 2
million colonies of stachybotrys.
The property manager agreed to inspect the home this week and make it
safe for Roberston and his family.
KOIN reports that mold grows in cold, damp climates like the Oregon
Coast and Willamette Valley.
If you have mold in your home, KOIN says that you need to first locate
the source of the moisture and stop it. Second, get rid of the mold --
even if that means replacing walls or ceilings. And last, cover the area
with paint or a sealant. The television station suggests leaving it to the
professionals.
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