Albany Panel to Assess Health Risks of Mold

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CIAQ Subscribers - FYI here's the link to a recent NYT article.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/03/nyregion/03mold.html?

_r=1 & oref=slogin

Link provided by Joy Erdman,OPNAV Safety Liaison

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Albany Panel to Assess Health Risks of Mold

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/03/nyregion/03mold.html?

pagewanted=1 & _r=2

By MANNY FERNANDEZ

Published: December 3, 2007

It has been described by state lawmakers as posing an " unacceptable

risk to New York State's health and environment. " It drove Bianca

Jagger, the former wife of Mick Jagger, from her Park Avenue

apartment in 2003. It forced hundreds of residents in Westbury, on

Long Island, to begin fleeing their apartment complex last week.

Marko Georgiev for The New York Times

Tongia said the black mold in her Harlem bathroom worsened

her family's asthma.

Go to City Room » It is the scourge of tenants, landlords and

homeowners alike, and now, state officials and Gov. Eliot Spitzer

are getting serious about it.

It is mold.

Tomorrow, the first meeting of the New York State Toxic Mold Task

Force will be held in Latham, N.Y., near Albany, at the headquarters

of the New York State Nurses Association. The meeting of the task

force, the first mold task force in the state, is an attempt by

health officials and medical experts to address what they describe

as a growing but little-recognized problem that has damaged property

and affected the health of tenants, homeowners and their children.

In August, a group of local and state officials, led by State

Senator Liz Krueger, a Manhattan Democrat, wrote to Governor

Spitzer, urging him to appoint the task force. It had been created

by a law signed by Gov. E. Pataki in 2005, but had never been

activated.

" Mold, some people are saying, is the new lead, which is a bad line,

but it is a reasonable analogy, " Ms. Krueger said.

In New York City, mold complaints to the city's housing agency have

increased to roughly 21,000 in the 2007 fiscal year from 16,000 in

the 2004 fiscal year. Mold complaints to the health department have

also jumped in recent years, and legal advocates for low-income

tenants say mold cases brought against landlords are increasingly

commonplace in New York City Housing Court.

But the nature and extent of the health problems mold has caused or

worsened in the city and around the state are largely unknown and

open to debate, and the legal requirements for properly ridding a

unit or building of excessive mold have yet to be established.

The goal of the Toxic Mold Task Force is to prepare a report to the

governor and the Legislature that examines what is known about toxic

mold, determines the magnitude of the problem in the state and looks

into the possibility of further action by the Legislature or state

agencies.

Think of mold, one expert on the subject explained, as a weed. They

are both equally ubiquitous: A little bit of mold grows everywhere,

indoors and outdoors, year round, primarily in warm, dark and damp

locations. There are thousands of different types of mold, but the

one that has received the most attention from the media and health

officials in recent years is Stachybotrys chartarum, a green-black

mold that produces what are known as mycotoxins and is often

referred to as toxic mold.

For some people, exposure to mold causes hay fever-like symptoms,

like nasal stuffiness and wheezing. For others, including those who

have mold allergies or a compromised immune system, the reaction to

mold exposure can be more severe. Mold is also widely acknowledged

to be a trigger for asthma attacks.

Tongia , 39, said the black mold that developed in a corner

of the bathroom ceiling of her Harlem apartment worsened her asthma

and caused asthmatic attacks and health problems for two of her

sons. A test in 2006 found the presence of Stachybotrys. Repairs

were made, but she recently noticed the mold's return.

" I feel like it's a lost cause, " said Ms. , who has been

involved in a dispute with her landlord over the mold and other

issues.

Dr. A. Hal Strelnick, a professor of family and social medicine at

the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in the Bronx, said that mold

contributes to high asthma rates in some of the city's low-income

neighborhoods. " It's a significant contributor to the asthma burden

in the city, " Dr. Strelnick said. " Is it more of a contributor than

diesel trucks or people not taking their medications? I couldn't

tell you. But it is a significant contributor. "

Indeed, much about the health effects of toxic mold remains unclear.

In 1997, after infants in Cleveland suffered unexplained lung

bleeding, the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

conducted a study that found that toxic mold may have caused the

children to get sick. The agency later found flaws in that study,

and concluded that a possible association between the lung bleeding

and exposure to Stachybotrys was not proven. In response to claims

that toxic mold caused memory loss, the C.D.C. also determined that

that link had not been firmly established. " There's so much we don't

know about mold, " said Dr. Meyer Kattan, a professor of pediatrics

at Columbia University Medical Center and one of the 14 task force

members. " What we do know is all over the place. "

The task force is led by Kim, interim director of the State

Department of Health's Center for Environmental Health, and

Mahar, assistant director of the State Department of State's

Division of Code Enforcement and Administration. Other members

include environmental and public health officials from Broome, Erie

and Madison Counties and New York City, as well as experts from

Columbia, Cornell and Syracuse Universities.

New York City is known for being tough on mold. Evidence of mold in

an apartment can qualify as either a Class B or Class C violation of

the Housing Maintenance Code. Class B violations pose a hazardous

condition to occupants and Class C violations are considered

immediately hazardous.

Go to City Room » If an inspector with the city's Department of

Housing Preservation and Development finds more than 25 square feet

of mold in a room, or more than 100 square feet in an entire

apartment, the problem is considered a Class C violation, the most

serious kind of housing code violation. The number of Class B

violations issued for mold have increased to 12,117 in the 2007

fiscal year from 6,614 in the 2005 fiscal year, while Class C

violations decreased slightly in the same time period, to 1,818 from

1,993.

It is the building owner's responsibility to correct Class C

violations. The city can perform emergency repairs to fix

uncorrected Class C violations and can force the owner to pay for

the work, a Housing Preservation and Development spokesman said. In

addition, a Housing Court judge can issue fines.

The state's mold standards are not as clearly defined. A spokesman

for the state's housing agency, the Division of Housing and

Community Renewal, said that there were no specific statewide

regulations regarding mold, but that the agency could dispatch

inspectors to investigate mold complaints.

Ms. Krueger said the lack of a state definition about what qualifies

as hazardous mold and what steps are legally required to clean it up

were regulatory gaps that the task force needed to address. " In the

absence of that, how do you find out what's dangerous here and what

are you supposed to do to make sure it gets fixed? " she said.

Even the phrase " toxic mold " is somewhat controversial.

The C.D.C. does not use that term, noting that while some molds

produce mycotoxins, molds themselves are not toxic or poisonous.

State environmental health officials acknowledge that toxic mold is

not so much a scientific term as a generic one, used to refer to

molds that can affect people's health. The law creating the task

force does not define the phrase.

Bill Sothern, chief investigator at Microecologies Inc., an

environmental inspection company he founded in 1993 that has offices

in New York, Los Angeles and New Orleans, said that the task force

was much needed, but that he could do without the name.

" It sounds kind of sensationalized, " he said.

But the problem, he added, is quite real.

New York City appears to be going through a Stachybotrys crisis, he

said. He attributed the spread of the mold to the widespread use of

gypsum wallboard, where mold can thrive in wet conditions, and

haphazard remediation work that allows the mold to return. " It's in

the finest buildings in New York, down to the tenements and slumlord-

type buildings, " he said of Stachybotrys.

Mr. Sothern said landlords should be required to follow the city's

guidelines for effective mold assessment and removal. The guidelines

were first issued in 1993 by the city's health department. In

December 2006, the city's public advocate, Betsy Gotbaum, issued a

report that called for the guidelines to be incorporated into the

Housing Maintenance Code.

" Even though we have these great guidelines in New York, there's

nothing that requires the landlords to follow those guidelines, " Mr.

Sothern said.