Mold May Soon Sprout Lawsuit

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Mold May Soon Sprout Lawsuit

_by C.

Staff Writer_

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August 06, 2009

The strange saga of the new Oak Ridge Elementary School began with leaks

and mold, continued for four years with increasing health symptoms among

students and teachers, and may end in lawsuits.

Guilford County Schools on July 31 filed for an extension of the time in

which it can sue Lyon Construction Inc. of Winston-Salem, the contractor who

rebuilt Oak Ridge Elementary in 2005. Guilford County Board of Education

attorney Jill said the school system also signed a tolling agreement

with Clinton E. Gravely and Associates of Greensboro, the architect on the

project.

Tolling agreements allow the parties to a potential lawsuit to waive their

right to claim that the suit should be dismissed due to the expiration of

a statute of limitations. Both of last week's actions effectively allow

Guilford County Schools to file lawsuits after the statutory deadline.

Tolling agreements contain no admission of wrongdoing by parties to a

potential lawsuit, and each side maintains all the rights it would normally

have in the lawsuit, except claiming that the statute of limitations has

expired. The statute of limitations in North Carolina is three years, and the

rebuilding of Oak Ridge Elementary ended in 2006.

said the agreement with Clinton E. Gravely and Associates is

mutual, but that Lyon Construction did not sign a tolling agreement. Guilford

County Schools instead filed unilaterally for a 20-day extension to the time

in which it can sue Lyon Construction, until August 20, 2009. Neither action

necessarily results in a lawsuit.

" Until we have an opportunity to complete the review of the situation at

that building, we're preserving the options of the school system, "

said. " We're in the look-see process. "

Lyon Construction President Barrow confirmed that his company had not

signed a tolling agreement.

" We were surprised by the filing by Guilford County Schools, because no

one has contacted us, " Barrow said. " The filing contained no specific

allegations, and we're aware of no construction issue that would contribute to

the

air quality issues. "

The school system's application for the extension of the time to sue Lyon

Construction reads, " The nature and purpose of this action is to seek

recovery for breach of contract and other claims against defendant Lyon

Construction, Inc., arising out of the renovation and construction of Oak Ridge

Elementary School. "

It's not the first time Guilford County Schools and Lyon Construction have

had a legal dispute after a building project. In November 2007, Lyon

Construction paid the school system $37,500 after a dispute over alleged design

flaws at Eastern Guilford Middle School.

A call to Clinton E. Gravely and Associates for comment was not returned.

As the problems at Oak Ridge Elementary have dragged on, the cost of the

construction, maintenance and remediation at the school have increased,

making lawsuits more likely. Guilford County Schools has spent about $600,000

on remediation so far, and will spend an estimated $222,000 on shipping Oak

Ridge Elementary students to other schools for the first 90 days of the

2009-2010 school year.

Guilford County Schools this week sent teachers into Oak Ridge Elementary,

which has been closed since school let out at the beginning of June, to go

through their files and supplies to decide what to take to the alternate

schools, a move that has some teachers asking for legal advice on an

environmental law website – a possible prelude to lawsuits by teachers and

parents

against the school system, something that has been discussed in the Oak

Ridge community for months.

Interviews with Oak Ridge Elementary employees and Guilford County Schools

administrators and a review of the documents of the project team that

oversaw construction show a pattern of concern about the design and

construction of the school dating to before the school was completed.

According to employees of the school and project team members, there were

problems throughout construction that resulted with the school's foundation

and grounds being soaked, at various times, in water, sewage and heating

oil. They said construction at the school was also interrupted by a tornado,

torrential rains, workers rupturing an unused heating-oil tank and, in

another incident, rupturing a gas line and forcing the evacuation of students.

Oak Ridge Elementary is a 1920s school that was rebuilt and expanded in

2005. According to school employees and Guilford County Schools

administrators who were present during the school's reconstruction, the original

design

of the new school's roof resulted in a mismatch between the roof of the old

school and the addition, which let water pour into the school, flooding its

foundation. Employees said that a representative of Lyon Construction had

to redesign the joint between the two roof sections on site to stop the

leaks. They said other leaks in the school's roof continued for years and had

to be fixed by contractors under the roof's warranty.

Burrows said his firm would not have done a redesign of the roof.

" We would not design, " he said. " That is not our role on the project. We

build according to the design plans and specifications. "

Employees said there were problems with the sewage system at the school

that resulted in sewage pouring into the foundation of the school for six

months after it opened in May 2005. They said the sewage-collection pipe for

one part of the school, located near the school office, was broken, sending

sewage into the area under the school. They said the pipe collecting sewage

from another classroom wing backed up and overflowed, leaving a strong

smell of sewage in that wing of the school. Guilford County Schools plumbers

pushed a camera into that sewage pipe, discovering a pair of protective eye

goggles and loose tile and other construction material blocking the pipe,

they said.

A team from the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health

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

Oak Ridge Elementary this summer from July 14 through July 17.

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 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

resulted in mold growing 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.

Project team records show 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.

The NIOSH team also found probable mold in the heating, ventilating and

air-conditioning (HVAC) system and in a crawlspace under the school. The

Guilford County Department of Public Health, after conducting an

epidemiological survey of employees and parents, in June made a determination

that any

remaining symptoms were not caused by mold, and were most probably caused by

the HVAC system not bringing enough fresh air into the building.

Guilford County Schools announced on July 23 that Oak Ridge Elementary

would not open on August 25, and that the school's students would be sent to

Oak Ridge Military Academy (grades two through five), Colfax Elementary

School (kindergarten and first grade) and Pearce Elementary School

(pre-kindergarten). The school system hopes to remediate any problems found at

Oak

Ridge Elementary by the end of October.

That plan changed on Wednesday, July 29, when Guilford County Schools

administrators received reports that the Cone Building at Oak Ridge Military

Academy had potential moisture and mold problems. Guilford County Schools

Western Region Superintendent Angelo Kidd inspected the military school with

an industrial hygienist from S & ME Inc. of Greensboro on Thursday, July 30.

Kidd said the industrial hygienist found a leak in the mechanical room

housing the building's HVAC system, several stained ceiling tiles, which could

indicate water leakage, and a musty smell he feared could be a sign of

mold.

" His suggestion was to not use that floor, and he said remediation would

take more than a couple of weeks, " Kidd said. " We couldn't afford to wait

that long, particularly with our situation. We didn't want to take the

chance. "

Kidd said that, after the repeated findings of mold at Oak Ridge

Elementary, sending the school's students to a floor of another school with

even a

hint of mold was a bad idea.

" With the musty smell, we wanted to err on the side of caution, " Kidd

said. " With the perception and everything that is going on, we'd open ourselves

up to a lot of criticism. "

On Friday, July 31, Guilford County Schools announced that because of the

S & ME report, rather than send Oak Ridge Elementary's grades two through

five to Oak Ridge Military Academy, the school system would move grades two

and three to the military school and use mobile classrooms on the Northwest

Guilford Middle and High School campus to house grades four and five.

Pre-kindergarten students will still be sent to Pearce Elementary and

kindergarten and first grade will go to Colfax Elementary.

Guilford County Schools Chief of Staff Nora Carr said that planning for

moving the Oak Ridge Elementary students is in its early stages, so having to

shift two grades from Oak Ridge Military Academy to Northwest won't slow

the process.

Carr, too, said that even a slight possibility of mold at one floor of Oak

Ridge Military Academy was enough to dissuade administrators from using

that floor.

" We couldn't guarantee student and staff health there, " she said. " It

would kind of defeat the purpose. "

The Guilford County Schools administration allowed students and teachers

to attend Oak Ridge Elementary all last year and decided after the end of

school to close the building and move its principal, assistant principal and

secretaries to other offices.

Administrators said the NIOSH team is expected to take weeks, possibly

months, to issue its final report.

Carr said, " That's one reason we pushed hard for a preliminary report that

we could make some determination on. "