Mold lurks in Manatee schools

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Monday, December 24, 2007

Mold lurks in Manatee schools

By SYLVIA LIM

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http://www.bradenton.com/local/story/291176.html

MANATEE

At first, Caroline Hoffner did not associate her runny nose and

watery eyes to the classrooms she teaches in at Palmetto Elementary.

Near the end of her first year there, though, she began to make a

connection to the school, first built 40 years ago and since

expanded.

Now in her fourth year, she regularly takes over-the-counter sinus

medicine and sometimes loses her voice in class. She developed

walking pneumonia last year.

" I'm a very healthy person, " Hoffner said. " I have been at two other

schools and the district office, and I hardly ever missed for being

sick. "

Hoffner is convinced the well-documented mold problem at the school

is making the children and faculty sick.

Sheryl Flint says her son came home with bloody noses, headaches and

stomach cramps.

" At first it was watery eyes, " she said. " Then it got worse. "

One third-grader walks around with a box of tissues under her arms

and sneezes constantly. One teacher had to use a microphone in class

because her voice was going, a co-worker said.

Concerns about Palmetto Elementary join those from parents at Oneco

and Tara elementaries, and from district staff at the newly

purchased professional support center at U.S. 301 and 63rd Avenue

East. They believe their health problems - runny noses, teary eyes

and scratchy throats - are related to mold.

In the last seven years, about 700 health concern reports were filed

with the Manatee County school district, according to records

obtained by the Bradenton Herald.

Ninety-nine percent of them are related to complaints of dust, mold

or mildew, said Forrest Branscomb, the school district's risk

manager. Teachers or parents can file these reports if they believe

they or the students are suffering from symptoms related to their

indoor environment.

" Based on the thousands of students and staff we have, and more than

50 sites that we maintain, this number seems about right, " said

Margi Nanney, spokeswoman for Manatee schools. " Especially in light

of Florida's environment, with its rainy seasons. "

But with the complaints this year about mold, Manatee schools

officials have responded by hiring experts to run tests and

prescribe remedies. They have also organized cleanups of rooms and

portables that include tearing up carpets and changing or scouring

air-conditioning units.

Some say those are just Band-Aid measures. And experts can't agree

on whether mold is the sole contributor to the illness some

experience.

The lack of established federal standards or regulations on how much

indoor mold is too much leaves school districts on their own as to

how they handle such problems, experts say.

Causes of mold

Donna Brazelton, a technology teacher at Palmetto Elementary, is

used to the musty smell and the mugginess in the computer lab.

It's 65 degrees in the room.

" I have to keep it that cold, " she said as she bustled around the

room after a class. " If it's any warmer . . . "

She lifted a few sheets of paper, damp and curled in spots, as proof.

The school's air circulation and mold problems are not new.

Some teachers keep photographs of leaking windows and doors. At one

of the buildings, especially during a storm, water would get in.

Metal grids holding ceiling tiles are rusting in several classrooms.

Tootsie Roll pops in Hoffner's room melt at room temperature, which

is about 75 degrees.

The moisture and stagnant air are conducive to mold growth, experts

say.

" Florida is unique because of its varying temperatures and high

humidities, " said Mark Levine, a Tallahassee-based attorney who has

handled about 20 mold-related cases. Levine represents Kathy Frey, a

teacher at Palmetto Elementary who is getting help for what she

contends are mold-related illnesses and has gotten herself removed

from the school's classrooms.

" In the past 20 to 30 years, buildings have no fresh-air entry

except for the HVAC (air-conditioning system) . . . As a result,

what you get is a buildup of cold temperatures and hot

temperatures, " Levine said. " And if that happens, moisture builds

up. "

Mold likes darkness and feeds on organic matters such as paper or

wood, said Dr. Stuart , a physician and professor at the

University of South Florida's college of public health and medicine.

It's typically found behind walls, in air-conditioning ducts and

drip pans, under carpets and even behind projector screens.

Most of the time, mold is caused by some sort of a leak: a broken

pipe, an older roof or broken windows. Sometimes, the mold gets in a

building through materials such as plywood, insulation and drywall

that might have been wet before use.

Its growth is aided by air-conditioning systems that don't work

efficiently.

" The problem came in the '70s when we decided that we had an energy

crisis, and we began making buildings that were tightly sealed, "

said Renoux, an independent teacher of architecture and

continuing-education courses on design. " When they did that, they

often did not think about ventilation. "

Dealing with mold

Half of the nation's 115,000 schools have problems linked to poor

indoor air quality, according to a 1999 U.S. Environmental

Protection Agency report. Indoor air pollution ranks among the top

five environmental risks to public health.

But there are no established standards or regulations for airborne

concentrations of mold, according to the EPA.

The Bush administration stripped any governmental help with indoor

air quality issues, said attorney Levine.

" Gov. (Jeb) Bush did the same thing with the Department of Safety in

the state of Florida, " he said.

That's why lawsuits over mold rarely go to court, Levine said.

So school districts and other municipalities are left on their own

dealing with mold problems.

Manatee schools have been prompt in dealing with the problem, Levine

added. Some school districts are not.

Once a report or complaint is filed, the Manatee district hires a

consultant to do an inspection and to recommend remedies if there is

a problem, Branscomb said. If there is a cleanup, the consultant

will be hired afterward to do a follow-up examination.

Because of the lack of standards, the district is sometimes left

with the question of ordering either a visual inspection or air

sampling, Branscomb said. The district uses EPA guidelines, which

emphasize prevention of leaks and dampness in buildings.

Air sampling measures air circulation in a room and compares indoor

and outdoor mold-spore counts. Ideally, the outdoor count should be

higher.

Often, the samplings show that, but that doesn't mean there isn't a

problem, Branscomb said.

If there is mold, most of the time it's visible, he said. If there

is a leak or if something is wet, it needs to be fixed.

The best cure for a mold problem is to stop the water, such as

leaks, Branscomb said. And the best prevention is constant cleaning.

The maintenance staff in the district takes care of minor leaks,

cleanups and air-conditioning problems, said Todd Henson, the

district's maintenance director.

But his staff is stretched pretty thin among the district's 50-plus

sites, including schools and offices, he said. In the team of 10 to

handle air-conditioning matters, including mechanics, control

technicians and a filter changer, they're four people down.

To Renoux, a problem such as mold isn't likely to go away despite

constant maintenance or cleaning because of the materials that are

still being used in the construction business, such as concrete.

" They are not elastic and don't breathe, " he said. " Buildings move

and concrete cracks. They don't have to be big cracks, just hairline

cracks. Then you have water that infiltrates that every time it

rains. "

Sickness from mold?

Kathy Frey never remembered being so sick before she started

teaching at Palmetto Elementary in 2001.

She thinks it's from the classroom she used to be in.

Breathing problems, respiratory symptoms, laryngitis.

" When I go into any of those buildings, I lose my voice, " she said.

After a long bout of illness, she enlisted the help of a lawyer and

an occupational health specialist.

The district and the principal have since moved her to a portable

used as a language lab. The relief from her symptoms was instant,

she said.

" They recognize she was sensitive to something in room, " said

attorney Levine. " They moved her immediately. "

It's difficult isolating the reasons for health symptoms and linking

it to a specific building, experts say.

Mold can spark allergies and asthma attacks, experts agree.

But there are other factors to consider, such as dust mites or dog

or cat dander, that together with mold spores could exacerbate

allergies, Branscomb and , of USF, said.

Branscomb said he observed that complaints about such symptoms seem

to be tied to certain times of the year, such as jumps in the spring

when pollen counts are high or during the flu season.

But is there such a thing as toxic mold?

Agencies such as the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

maintain that mold itself is not toxic and instances where it causes

adverse reactions in humans are rare and difficult to prove.

" Eighty percent of all mold is harmless, " said Lipsey, a

ville-based toxicologist. " But if you have some of those that

are toxic and pathogenic and produce mycotoxin, then you can have

bloody noses or upper respiratory symptoms. "

Some molds - such as the infamous stachybotrys, or black mold, which

experts suspect of being the cause of a mold problem that closed a

middle school in Houston this fall - grow behind walls and may not

be visible at first, he said.

The toxin black mold produces is meant to ward off other bacteria or

mold competing for the same food source, he said. Humans are often

caught in the middle of such warfare.

The deadly effects of the black mold's toxin on lab mice are

documented, Lipsey said.

" Most people aren't clinically allergic to mold, " said

Brinchman, a former teacher and director and founder of the La Mesa,

Calif.-based Center for School Mold Help. " Anyone can be harmed by

toxic exposure. "

For Lipsey, there's a basic indicator of whether someone's symptoms

are related to a building.

" They're sick when they're there, and not when they're not, " Lipsey

said.