Mold pervades report on Oak Ridge Elementary

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Mold Pervades School Report

by C.

Staff Writer

July 30, 2009

Mold

is back on the table as a possible culprit in the Oak Ridge Elementary

School health mystery, as a federal team has found it in several places

in the supposedly mold-free school.

Guilford County Schools

announced on July 23 that Oak Ridge will not open on August 25, and

that the school's students will be sent to Oak Ridge Military Academy

(grades two through five), Colfax Elementary School (kindergarten and

first grade) and E.P. Pearce Elementary School (pre-kindergarten), at

an estimated cost of $222,000. The school system hopes to remediate any

problems found at Oak Ridge Elementary School by the end of October.

Much

of the focus of the four-year Oak Ridge Elementary School saga has been

on mold, which was found at the school as early as May 2005, three

months before the official opening of the completely rebuilt school,

and as late as May 2009. Students and teachers at the school have

reported a slew of health symptoms, including headaches, fatigue,

difficulty concentrating, respiratory problems and nosebleeds.

That

focus shifted in recent months for two reasons: the Guilford County

Department of Public Health on June 25 released the final results of

its epidemiological study of the symptoms, discounting mold as a cause

of any current symptoms, and recent air-quality tests at the school

found no high mold levels.

That didn't mean Oak Ridge Elementary

School hasn't had a mold problem – mold has been found at the school

repeatedly, by Guilford County Schools employees and outside experts

brought in to do tests. But health department and school officials

alike thought the mold problem at the school had been fixed, and any

remaining symptoms were probably caused by a badly calibrated heating,

ventilation and air-conditioning (HVAC) system that wasn't providing

enough fresh air.

The arrival in Guilford County of a federal

team from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

(NIOSH), part of the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, on

July 14 was intended to bring a higher level of expertise to the Oak

Ridge mystery, and also to provide a credible independent investigation

of the symptoms for parents and teachers, some of whom felt that

Guilford County Schools had stonewalled them, particularly in the early

stages of the saga, before the symptoms were confirmed by the health

department.. The school system has been very open in its recent

reporting on the problem.

The NIOSH team released its first

report on the school's environmental problem on Thursday, July 23, and

that report is shot through with mold. The report also lends credence

to reports by people in the Oak Ridge community that there were

systemic construction problems when the school was rebuilt in 2005, and

that those problems have made the school leak-prone, which has

contributed to the mold.

The NIOSH team, which spent three days

at the school, consists of at least four NIOSH officials – including

-Ganser, an epidemiologist in NIOSH's Division of Respiratory

Disease Studies and an expert on building contamination; ,

a NIOSH medical officer; and industrial hygienist Ju-Hyeong Park. It

also included Caulfield, a senior vice president of the

Group, a New England-based firm that tests and evaluates buildings with

suspected environmental contamination; and Fred McKnight, a mechanical

engineer and industrial hygienist for the same firm. The Group

was recommended to Guilford County Schools by NIOSH.

The team's

first report is very preliminary, and consists of an assessment by

-Ganser, and Park and a more detailed building analysis by

the Group. The team left monitoring equipment at Oak Ridge

Elementary School, and may take up to two months to issue its final

report.

The first thing you notice about the report is that, for

a school that has been repeatedly cleaned of mold and has tested

mold-free, Oak Ridge seems to have a lot of mold.

-Ganser,

and Park noted a " strong, musty, moldy odor " in the basement and

crawl space under the school's library, and lime on the floor of the

crawl space, which is usually a sign of water intrusion. They also

noted a musty smell in the corridor around the library, and in

particular around the school museum.

Since the start of the Oak

Ridge environmental problem, Guilford County Board of Education member

Darlene Garrett has suggested that the air handlers in the HVAC system

are contaminated with mold and may be contributing to the symptoms. The

preliminary NIOSH report backs up Garrett's contention.

" From

our initial inspection, it is possible that some of the coils for the

HVAC air handlers may have mold contamination, " the NIOSH team wrote.

" As further discussed by the Group, these issues will have to be

addressed. "

The Group's report was more specific, saying

that the dirt-floor crawl space under the old wing of the building is a

likely source of mold. The company based that finding on an inspection

of the crawl space and on reports from occupants of the school.

The

Group recommended that a flexible vapor barrier be constructed

to seal off the crawl space, and that the crawl space itself be

depressurized.

Another thread throughout the NIOSH and

Group reports is that Oak Ridge has pressure problems. Modern buildings

are designed with the air pressure in specific rooms, hallways, attics

and other spaces carefully calibrated to limit or control airflow. Air

flows from areas with high air pressure, called positive pressure, to

areas of low pressure, called negative pressure. That can be a problem

with contaminated buildings, because contaminants in an area with

positive pressure can travel to areas with negative pressure.

The

NIOSH team found airflow issues between rooms and spaces. The NIOSH

team said that classrooms should generally have positive pressure

compared to hallways, and bathrooms should have negative pressure

compared to outer rooms.

" This was not always the case, " the

team reported. " During the day, the attic was under positive pressure

in regard to the exterior of the building. However, at night, when the

dehumidifier (which serves the classroom wings) was turned off, this

resulted in the attic being under negative pressure in regard to the

outside of the building. This allowed outside humid air to enter the

attic. "

If there is a mold problem at Oak Ridge Elementary

School, it's also a water problem. Mold only grows in the presence of

moisture. Another recurring theme at Oak Ridge is that the school has

had persistent low-level leaks in its roof, walls and floors. The NIOSH

report highlighted two possible causes of water getting into the

school: moist air getting into the school because of HVAC problems and

direct infiltration through the roof, walls and concrete foundation

slab.

The NIOSH team reported that the foam roof on the old

section of the school had multiple damaged areas, and there did not

appear to be adequate flashing – metal sheets added to building

components to prevent water intrusion – at the junction between Room

206 and the school's gymnasium. The team also, using an infrared

camera, found moisture in a recently repaired exterior wall next to the

gym's bleachers. The team said the roof and the flashing should be

repaired.

The NIOSH team found that the inadequate flashing at

the junction of the gym wall and Room 206 was the probable cause of

mold found in the carpets in that room. The team reported that the

flashing appears to be mounted on the surface of the wall, rather than

continuing through the gym wall to prevent drainage. The team

recommended that Guilford County Schools install through-wall flashing

at the junction. The team also reported that flashing outside Room 400,

which had already been repaired, had resulted in leakage and caused

mold to grow in that wall.

Flashing mounted on the surface,

rather than in the wall, may be a sign of flashing slapped on at the

last minute, which fits with the records of the project team that

monitored the reconstruction of the school in 2005.

Documents

generated by the Oak Ridge Elementary School project team show that the

mold and moisture problems predate the school's opening – and that at

least some flashing in the school had not been done by May 2005, when

there were already students in the building and when heavy rains caused

several leaks in the brand-new roof of the building, resulting in wet

inside walls and puddles of water on hallway floors.

At that

time, Roth, the representative for HICAPS Construction Management

Services, which was managing the construction project, reported that

scuppers – drains to let water out of exposed parts of buildings – had

not been flashed to prevent leaks. Roth said the contractor – Lyon

Construction of Winston-Salem, or its subcontractor – was trying to

identify and fix the leaks, and that the roof was covered by a

warranty. Sources at the school say the contractor was called to the

school to fix roof leaks under warranty several times after 2005. The

roof is no longer under warranty.

The NIOSH team's preliminary

report also suggested that water could be leaking into the school's

concrete foundation slab, something that had been suggested by parents

and teachers. The team found surface drainage issues around the school,

particularly between two of the school's wings, and that a storm drain

outside the library was blocked and full of standing water.

" Such issues may lead to water infiltrating the concrete slab, " the team found.

The

finding of new mold at Oak Ridge Elementary School doesn't of necessity

mean that the mold is causing the current health problems at the

school, or that the health department's fresh-air theory is wrong. But

it disproves the theory that the mold and problems and water leaks at

the school have all been solved.

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