TTSD cleans up mold, plans to check other schools / Attn, Banta

[Guest guest]

Mr Banta, do you remember working on the North Tahoe High School

case?

One of those two " affected employees " from NTHS was just at a local

Tahoe CFS support group meeting a few weeks ago.

He is still ill, and still looking for explanations as to how such a

thing could happen, ways to improve his condition, and why this

phenomenon is still disbelieved.

-MW

Page 2B Tahoe World, Thursday January 7 1999

By Canino

_____________________________

Tahoe World Staff

The Tahoe Truckee Unified School District is Proactively dealing

with a mold found at North Tahoe High School, even though one

environmental expert noted that the districts response might be more

than necessary, according to NTHS principal Don Beno.

Jeff Hicks, an industrial hygienist with Geometrix Consultants in

Folsom, made a presentation to NTHS staff members about stachybotrys

mold Monday afternoon, Beno said.

" I think people are comfortable with the way the district office is

handling it, " Beno said.

The school district has removed a stachybotrys mold found in the

wall of a NTHS office, has sampled the air quality throughout the

building and plans to test wet areas in other schools.

The stachybotrys mold was discovered Dec. 18 after an environmental

firm investigated the high school to determine the cause of two

employees allergic symptoms.

Two employees filed workers compensation claims Oct 2, 1998 for

skin, eye, and nasal irritation in the workplace.

A firm, Restoration Consultants, was hired to remove stachybotrys

and penicilllin aspergillus molds from a square foot area of a high

school office wall.

The firm also took air samples from the rest of the school; the

district has not yet received the results, said Britto, TTUSD

director of facilities.

It was discovered that the NTHS office wall was damaged from a snow

loader last winter, which allowed water to seep into the wall and

created the damp conditions for the mold to grow, he said.

The district has been active in its response to the mold because of

problems at another district which temporarily closed an elementary

school because of the mold. The Fairfield-Suisan Unfied School

District near the Bay Area dealt with the impacts of parental outrage

as well as the problem of eliminating the mold from that elementary

school.

At the Elk Grove Unified School District in Sacramento, either the

stachybotrys or the penicillin aspergillus mold has been found in

about 10 of 32 schools that have been checked since the mold first

appeared in May, according to Jim Elliot, director of communications

for the 42-school, 43,000 student school district.

With 4.5 million square feet of school space to check, the Elk Grove

Unified School District only checks for the mold in places where

there have been records of leaks or repored funny smells. The Elk

Grove district will conduct air quality tests or drill into walls if

needed.

If mold is found in a classroom, the students are moved immediately

and parents are notified. He said there have not been any reports of

employees or students experiencing physical symptoms from the mold.

The mold would have to be eaten to become a problem, Elliott said.

The publicized cases of poisoning from the stachybotrys mold are

from instances of animals or people eating food contaminated by the

mold, according to Hicks. The mold is one of thousands of common

environmental molds found everywhere, Hicks said.

Why the mold's discovery has caused concern in the public is hard to

pinpoint, Elliott said, although every time a mold is discovered in

the Elk Grove Unified School District, there are television reports

of it.

" With the rain and the weather, mold has been discovered that people

have become aware of and had never thought of that before, " Elliott

said.

He is unaware of the mold causing any problems at other school

districts in the state.

We're the only district I know of that is actively looking for it, "

Elliott said.

But the Tahoe-Truckee Unified School District will be joining Elk

Grove in searching for the mold.

______________________________________________________________________

" We're committed to finding out what the problem is. Maybe the mold

wasn't the issue in the first place "

- Britto TTUSD Director of Facilities

_____________________________________________________________________

Britto said the district will first talk to school custodians to

identify any potential wet areas and then test for the mold.

In the meantime, however, the district still does not definitely

know if the mold in the NTHS wall caused the two employees allergy-

type symptoms. The district has not released the names of the two

affected employees.

" We're committed to find out what the problem is, " he said, " Maybe

the mold wasn't the issue in the first place. "

However, according to Hicks, it can be difficult to nail down what

causes an allergic reaction, Britto said.

The workers compensation office will determine if the school

district needs to investigate other potential causes for the

employees' allergic-type reactions.

It's a tough one, Britto said.

______________________________________________________________________

[Guest guest]

,

Yes you are right; I did provide some sampling for the

school district about ten years ago. It is unfortunate the employee has a

continuing illness, but I am not a doctor and haven’t had any medical

knowledge of the case.

Also a correction to the article you posted. Our company

does not provide remediation services. The mold remediation was performed by a

mold remediation contractor.

Banta

[Guest guest]

" Banta " wrote:

>

> ,

> Yes you are right; I did provide some sampling for the school

district about ten years ago. It is unfortunate the employee has a

continuing illness, but I am not a doctor and haven't had any medical

knowledge of the case.

> Banta

>

I told both of those teachers involved in that incident that I had

experienced a similar situation of mold-illness and that I had

undertaken a strategy of concerted mold avoidance to help control my

reactivities.

To my surprise, they rejected my information as baseless and

unproven.

This was a shock to me, as one of them is a biology teacher, and I

had believed that his personal experience would have served to

convince him of the reality of his own condition and that it was not

well-understood by doctors.

I had actually hoped to get his help to pursuade Dr of

Incline Village to listen to me about this peculiarity that was

happening in our local schools.

The teacher declined to do so, for the very unexpected reason that

I " had no peer reviewed evidence to present " - even though I had a

copy of the 1994 Saratoga Springs " proceedings " manual in my hand -

open to the section on " Chronic Fatigue Syndrome " : The very illness

he still claims to be suffering from.

-MW

[Guest guest]

> >

> > ,

>

> > Yes you are right; I did provide some sampling for the school

> district about ten years ago. It is unfortunate the employee has a

> continuing illness, but I am not a doctor and haven't had any

medical

> knowledge of the case.

> > Banta

> >

>

>

> I told both of those teachers involved in that incident that I had

> experienced a similar situation of mold-illness and that I had

> undertaken a strategy of concerted mold avoidance to help control

my

> reactivities.

> To my surprise, they rejected my information as baseless and

> unproven.

>

> This was a shock to me, as one of them is a biology teacher, and I

> had believed that his personal experience would have served to

> convince him of the reality of his own condition and that it was

not

> well-understood by doctors.

>

> I had actually hoped to get his help to pursuade Dr of

> Incline Village to listen to me about this peculiarity that was

> happening in our local schools.

>

> The teacher declined to do so, for the very unexpected reason that

> I " had no peer reviewed evidence to present " - even though I had a

> copy of the 1994 Saratoga Springs " proceedings " manual in my hand -

> open to the section on " Chronic Fatigue Syndrome " : The very

illness

> he still claims to be suffering from.

> -MW

>

,

It sounds like you warned the school of the threat, but they chose to

ignore your words of wisdom. We are the messengers, clients choosing

to ignore us are on their own.

" It is not how many you lost, it's how many you saved. "

Mark