Pollution, fumes, asbestos plague Orange County new school offices

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Pollution, fumes, asbestos plague new school offices

By Shanklin | Sentinel Staff Writer

Posted March 23, 2002

Cleanup. (RED HUBER/ORLANDO SENTINEL)

Mar 22, 2002

Former Navy sound lab. (ORLANDO SENTINEL)

Mar 22, 2002

By the end of the summer, about 85 Orange County school workers are set to

move into offices that were once a top-secret Navy laboratory and are now a

hazardous-waste site.

Once the brains of America's underwater warfare against the Soviet Union,

the 1950s sound lab on Lake Gem in south Orlando will become offices

for several school departments.

Workers scheduled to move from the district's offices on Tampa Avenue are

worried that long-documented problems, including groundwater pollution,

chemical fumes, and asbestos walls and floors could harm them.

" My parents both died of cancer of various types, and I don't want to be the

next one on the list, " said repair technician Lacey. His department

will move into a room with a wood-block floor that reeks of creosote fumes.

Lacey and other workers have complained to district officials about moving

to the industrial site. District officials, though, insist the offices will

be safe after the Navy's $750,000 cleanup.

A one-year groundwater cleanup program has reduced the concentration of PCE,

or tetrachloroethene, from being 30 times stronger than allowed by law to

being about double the levels allowed by the state. And tests have shown the

air is safe to breathe, said school senior facilities manager

Lubozynski.

But the line between safety and danger is so thin that workers will be

prohibited from nailing, tacking or taping any materials to walls to keep

the asbestos from becoming exposed.

A victim of 1990s military-base closings, the sound lab still bears some of

the marks of decades of chemical testing. Black, yellow and red signs

throughout the building warn of anhydrous ammonia, mold-release spraying,

acid storage, suspected cancer agents and hazardous substances.

Left over from Cold War

Built in 1951, the lab was a product of America's Cold War with the former

Soviet Union. The Navy chose the site because Lake Gem was 88 feet deep

and scientists could test underwater sonar devices there. Scientists there

developed hydrophones, ocean-floor devices that detected the speed,

direction and size of Russian submarines. In the 1960s, technicians tested

submarine coatings to find which ones best deflected sonar.

The years of testing took a toll on the property. From 1951 until the

building was connected to sewer lines in 1976, the sound lab dumped all of

its chemical waste into the underground septic system. In the waters of Lake

Gem , inspectors have found traces of such toxins as mercury, copper,

barium and arsenic.

" Any logical person concerned about his health would be concerned about

materials that are deemed to be hazardous by the EPA [Environmental

Protection Agency], " said school computer technician Ed Wyant.

Not to worry, said Lubozynski, an engineer and industrial hygienist. Fish

samples show the lake water is not polluted. And the remaining groundwater

pollutants are remote from workers and pose no threat to them, he said.

Even without chemical-related problems, the sound-lab makeover has other

troubles. Not only is it a hazardous-waste site, it is also a state historic

site for its role in Cold War defense and also because it may be the site of

Orlando's earliest settlement, Fort Gatlin.

The State Historic Preservation Office considers the asbestos tile in the

main corridors and the lobbies, as well as the creosote wood-block floor on

the first floor, to be historic.

District employees must live with those features.

But technicians will haul heavy equipment past the asbestos-coated walls,

and they could easily bump into them and damage them, said Judy , a

clerk in the technology-repair department.

" When we can't even hang up a phone list on a wall with a thumb tack, how

are the walls supposed to hold up when a cart carrying 80 pounds of

equipment bumps into them? " asked.

Lubozynski said the plaster walls are so soundly constructed that if they

become damaged, they can be fixed with paint. Many school buildings have

asbestos walls, he added, including the building where the technology-repair

department is now located.

Lab was free

The reason the school district wanted the lab in the first place was because

it was a giveaway. The Navy valued it at $11 million, but a school appraisal

declared it was worth only $50,000 because of the limited ways it could be

used and the costs of demolishing about a dozen small buildings on the site.

In the end, the district got it for free.

It may have been a bargain for the school district, but the taxpayers' tab

includes more than $750,000 for the Navy's cleanup, $300,000 from Orange

County for renovations and possibly $1 million from the school district to

transform the industrial site into the Fort Gatlin Administration Center.

The district's investment is $20 to $30 per square foot. The district,

though, will not get full use out of the site.

With 61,000 square feet, the three sound-lab buildings that will not be

demolished could accommodate more than 300 office workers. But no more than

125 employees will ever work there because the School Board agreed to limit

parking in a contract with Orange County.

The district had hoped to use two of the newer lakeside buildings for

much-needed teacher-training space, but the parking restrictions killed that

idea, said Jon , district senior manager for real property.

The district plans to demolish five buildings at the old Tampa Avenue school

offices to make way for a city park. But the demolition comes just a few

years after the district spent $50,000 on a new roof for one of those

buildings -- offices that district officials acknowledge have been vacant

and unused.

Also, the district will demolish the newest wing of offices in the main

building because of a neighbor's complaint. Sound-lab neighbor Bob Hamilton,

Orlando's former city attorney, said the county required the school district

to destroy the 1992 addition after one person in the neighborhood objected.

" The rest of us felt that if the School Board could use it, that's OK, " said

Hamilton, whose lakefront home overlooks the sound lab.

Overall, Hamilton said, school employees are getting a good location.

" I wouldn't be afraid to work there, " Hamilton said. Shanklin can be

reached at mshanklin@... or 407-420-5538.

Copyright © 2002, Orlando Sentinel