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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. 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.

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.