Jordan Slams Builders in Mold Suit

2001–2004: Calming Advances in Homeland Security

The Camera (Almost) Never Blinks LEGAL ADVICE BY MICHAEL S. GREENE

Design Makes Green HVAC Retrofit Elementary

Word on the Street 

GET-OUT-OF-JAIL-FREE CARD
Officials in Thurston County, Wash., last month set free 14 prisoners before their normal release dates to alleviate jail crowding following the discovery of “toxic” mold earlier this week, reported the Olympian newspaper. The mold led to the precautionary evacuation of 48 other prisoners. Those released are nonviolent offenders who are “not a threat to the community,” said Corrections Chief Karen Daniels. Six of those released were felons.

IAQ LAB JOINS STL
Aerotech Laboratories has become part of the Severn Trent Laboratories group of companies, the world’s largest environmental testing concern. STL’s existing operations in the United States include 29 laboratories, a fleet of mobile laboratories, and 20 service centers. STL is a member of the
Severn Trent group of companies. Severn Trent Plc. is a UKbased company with revenues of $3 billion and 15,000 employees worldwide. Aerotech CEO Vladimir Bolin writes in a letter to customers: “Moving forward, we are excited to leverage the strength of this group’s 49 locations to accelerate our geographical expansion plans and enhanced customer service models. Aside from continual improvements, operations will remain essentially the same. The roles of the key people you engage at Aerotech will remain unchanged.”

RESTORATION MAKEOVER
The Association of Specialists in Cleaning and Restoration streamlined its organization structure last month to meet the needs of its members and the cleaning and restoration industry more efficiently and effectively. Under the new setup, the association consists of three ASCR councils, focusing on the environment, restoration and textiles. The five institutes that formerly made up the association no longer exist. “This new organization structure has countless benefits,” said newly elected ASCR President Ken Adams. “For starters, it will enable us to speak with a stronger voice, eliminate redundancies in our work, more quickly address front-burner issues, and be more focused in everything that we do. And that only scratches the surface of how this will positively affect our members and the industry.” The actual work of defining the  structure of the new councils will play out over the next few months, according to Adams, to be completed before ASCR’s July 21–23 board meeting.

HOUSECALLS
While “sick house syndrome” causes “increasing concern” in South Korea, Soeul’s Hanyang University Hospital last month opened “the country’s first clinic to specialize in the syndrome,” the Korea Times reported. The online newspaper said that according to professor Kim Yoon-shin, the Indoor Air Quality Clinic “plans to offer a ‘one-stop service’ to its patients, covering everything from treatment of individual symptoms to eliminating the source of the illness.” The professor said, “After confirming that the patient is suffering from sick house syndrome, our staff will inspect the patient’s working and living environments to find out what is causing the symptoms and then suggest ways to alleviate them.”

SCHOOL’S OUT
An elementary school in Greeneville, Tenn., closed in February after mold was found in the library. While students were sent to an adjacent high school building, Ottway Elementary School was closed for the remaining months of the school year. County officials engaged in talks of demolishing the affected wing of the school, which includes the library and seven classrooms, and building a new wing.

METH: THE NEW MOLD?
According to Clean fax magazine, the rise in U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration raids on illegal methamphetamine labs could spell big business for carpet cleaners and remediators. The magazine reports 7,050 labs were raided last year. After HAZMAT teams perform their work, carpet cleaners and other restorers are left with the challenging (and potentially dangerous) work of removing chemical residue from porous surfaces.

HIE SHOW CANCELLED
The Healthy Indoor Environments conference, scheduled April 14–17 in Baltimore, Md., was cancelled. The conference, co-produced by the IAQ Media Group and the University of Tulsa Indoor Air Program, was advertised to draw hundreds of IAQ practitioners for a three-day technical program and 35-booth exposition hall. Persons who registered to attend or exhibit should contact IAQ Media Group regarding refunds at (973) 822-1666.

ANSI/ASHRAE STANDARD 62.2
The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers’ residential ventilation standard has been approved by the American National Standards Institute. ANSI/ASHRAE Standard 62.2, Ventilation and Acceptable Indoor Air Quality in Low-Rise Residential Buildings, is the only nationally recognized indoor air quality standard developed solely for residences. The approval means the ANSI Board of Standards Review has determined that the standard met the consensus requirements set by the accrediting standards-writing organization. The standard will carry ANSI in its title.

“This approval from ANSI illustrates industry acceptance for 62.2,” said ASHRAE President Richard Rooley. “ANSI’s approval means that ASHRAE has successfully demonstrated that we complied with ANSI procedures, which include their ‘cardinal principles’ of openness, balance, due process
and consensus, in the development of the standard.” The standard
is intended for use by code bodies with many of the requirements already existing in one or more codes. It can be applied to new or existing houses. The standard provides the minimum requirements necessary to achieve acceptable indoor air quality for dwellings.

FUNGUS ON CAMPUS
The University of Pennsylvania’s student newspaper reported Feb. 27 about an unwelcome guest in one of the Philadelphia college houses. While an article in The Daily Pennsylvanian describes residents’ complaints of mold in their bathroom, a supplementary photograph includes a blowup
of some spores in the cracks between the ceiling and wall of a shower stall. The report said “a similar situation” at another college house was “quickly solved” last October, but students in this case said three phone calls to the campus’ Facilities Services over a two-week period were unheeded. Administrators told the student newspaper they were
unaware of any complaints.

DON’T DRINK THE WATER
Elected officials and water authority heads in Washington, D.C., are taking a beating these days due to the discovery of highly elevated levels of lead in the city’s drinking water and the fact that the water authority was less than forthcoming about disclosing the contamination to the public. But new findings show that while water lead levels in much of the District exceed EPA guidelines, that’s not the only culprit causing city children to have elevated blood lead levels. Fourteen children in one small D.C. school were found to have high levels of lead in their blood. All of their homes
have lead water pipes; however, subsequent investigations also found lead-based paint and soil lead contamination at all 14 of the children’s homes. The water in D.C. may not be fit for consumption, but just replacing lead pipes won’t come close to eliminating lead hazards in the nation’s capital.

Jordan Slams Builders in Mold Suit
By Steve Sauer

Michael Jordan is back in the news again, but this time he’s not announcing another revival of his professional basketball career. In a case that has already drawn mainstream media attention to mold, attorneys for the celebrated spokesperson and his wife, Juanita Jordan, filed a lawsuit in March against the builders of their 25,000-square-foot home in Highland Park, Ill., a suburb of Chicago. Interestingly though, more than just four subcontractors are named in the suit; the couple is also taking to court Atlanta-based Sto Corp., which manufactures exterior insulation finish systems, or synthetic stucco systems. In their complaint against the corporation, the Jordans contend Sto Corp. committed consumer fraud.

According to their complaint, the company verified there was some moisture at the home in 1999 but that it was minor; however, an expert hired by the Jordans found that components of the home were “physically damaged, saturated with water, rotting and covered with mold growth.” Subsequent repair expenses inside and outside the mansion have cost the Jordans more than $2.6 million, they said in the lawsuit.

It’s the phrase people inevitably echo every time something happens in their own backyards. Whether it is a school shooting in a suburban area or the discovery of a toxin in your own home, the sentence that all lips form is similar: “I thought it could never have happened here.” It’s also the phrase one indivisible nation gasped two-and-a-half years ago, after the tragic events of Sept. 11, 2001, sent shockwaves through the core of America. Citizens of the United States who had been confident, if not complacent, found their lives suddenly shattered. That year, in a major way, we felt the worldwide catastrophe of terrorism. Americans witnessed the billowing smoke rising from their own treasured beacons: the Pentagon, a symbol of assuredness; the World Trade Center, the representation of wealth; a field, an emblem of a native soil hit hard. In 2001, airplanes and letters began being used senselessly as weapons.

We grieved, we reflected, we picked up the pieces, and we vowed not to let it happen to us again. With this experience, we are struggling to
find out just what went wrong. With news of terrorist attacks continuing to claim the lives of hundreds at a time around the world – and with threats, scares and other constant reminders of chemical or biological attacks still on people’s minds in the United States – laboring to plan ahead is all the more prescient. Through progress in homeland security and revisiting the past, we are now less vulnerable than we were two-and-a-half years ago. While groups like the American Society of Heating, Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Engineers hold satellite broadcasts on homeland security
and companies develop innovations in the detection of contaminants, questions about the past remain:

• How should government authorities have acted in clearing the air at Ground Zero and cleaning building interiors in surrounding areas?
• Why have members of the Lower Manhattan community charged the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and all of its chief authorities with “violating the law with respect to the cleanup” around Ground Zero?
• Why does a newly published scientific study say the conditions of asthmatic children who lived in the area went downhill in the first quarter after the attacks?

“The airborne dust from the WTC collapse covered Lower Manhattan like a heavy blizzard. It settled in building interiors north of Canal Street in Manhattan and in Brooklyn as well. The dust included, among other substances, asbestos, lead, glass fibers, mercury and concrete dust. It made its way through open and sometimes even closed windows depositing everything from a very light coating of dust to inches of dust covering every interior surface and into the HVAC systems and ductwork. The disbursement of hazardous substances, contaminants and pollutants continued through 2001.”
So reads a small portion of the 116-page lawsuit filed March 10 in the Southern District court of New York. In proposing a class action, attorneys
from two law firms and one nonprofit organization have already made headway in identifying some of the victims.

Plaintiffs named in the lawsuit include 12 people who live, work or go to school in Lower Manhattan or Brooklyn. The suit describes the medical side effects these 12 locals experienced since the Twin Towers’ crumbling contaminated the vicinity with pollutants, ranging from chronic rashes to permanent scarring of the lungs. Restrictive airway disease, gastro-esophageal reflux, upper respiratory inflammation, persistent cough and chest pain were some of the other symptoms mentioned among plaintiffs. According to the lawsuit, some of the plaintiffs indicated the EPA’s voluntary cleanup of their apartments was unprofessional and the testing inadequate. In some cases, the EPA did not even test the apartments before the cleanup.

Their attorneys cite an independent study that found a “finer-particle, more hazardous form of asbestos” and blamed shortcomings in EPA tests for the reason the agency could not find this asbestos. A Sept. 12, 2001, memo obtained by the New York Daily News shows that Dr. Ed Kilbourne of the Federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry was hesitant about deciding whether the public should be allowed to return to the area due to “a number of environmental hazards, especially asbestos-contaminated dust.” Addressing a CDC bioterrorism preparedness and response director, Kilbourne said that the area also contained “other potential toxic hazards” such as “acid gases, volatile organic compounds and heavy metals.” The lawsuit proposes these studies and the memo as evidence in support of the plaintiffs’ side. It reads: “Despite the fact that one day after the WTC collapse a top federal scientist warned against the quick reoccupation of buildings in the area of the WTC collapse because of possible dangers from asbestos and other toxic materials, and despite the fact that the EPA’s own tests conducted days after the collapse revealed that WTC dust contained asbestos at levels higher than the danger thresholds the EPA had itself established, on Sept. 17, 2001, federal and New York City officials allowed thousands of people to return to their homes and work places in Lower Manhattan and Brooklyn, with no proper cleanup having occurred. Thus, plaintiffs and all class members have been exposed to hazardous substances since the early stages of this catastrophic event.”

Stuyvesant High School, which is located four blocks from the World Trade Center site, was evacuated on Sept. 11 and reopened Oct. 9. Safety considerations passed, the EPA advised the school board in reopening Stuyvesant and echoed words about children’s safety throughout the following months.

However, the lawsuit states that parts of the school, including HVAC ductwork and carpets in an auditorium, had not been cleaned until after the end of the 2001–2002 school year. The suit further reports that during the school year, the environmental engineer for a parents’ association had even been finding higher airborne concentrations of particulate matter at the school than at the WTC site, all in excess of EPA regulatory limits.

One local facility that will surely be eyeing this class action is the Charles B. Wang Community Health Center, located less than two miles away from the World Trade Center site, in Chinatown. It is the clinic where the patient charts of 205 children were reviewed by researchers for a study that links asthma and Ground Zero. Dr. Donald YM Leung, the appointed editor of the Journal of Allergy and Clinical Immunology, was the lead scientist in the research published in the journal’s March issue. He and three colleagues found significant increases in the number of pediatric asthma patients and their visits to the clinic. In the year leading up to Sept. 11, 2001, the Wang clinic had only 306 children with asthma; nearly 200 more children came to the clinic over the following 12 months. Among those patients, 1,044 visits to the clinic were attributed to asthma in the year before the attacks, whereas asthma-related visits in the year after climbed to 1,554.

The scientists also observed increases in the number of overall doctor visits, clinic visits and prescriptions among the group of children studied. They also noted declines in the children’s peak expiratory flow rates. Some of the children’s airways were narrowing, the doctors said.

ASHRAE Homeland Security Broadcast
While some experts focus on how they could have improved the cleanup and testing procedures following the World Trade Center collapse, others in homeland security have their hearts set on preventing attacks of another nature.

The former director of a federal government office created to protect the public from acts of bioterrorism and other health emergencies is serving as keynote speaker for ASHRAE’s satellite broadcast. “Homeland Security for Buildings,” which addresses key issues related to building protection from chemical, biological and radiological attacks, takes place April 14 at noon on the East Coast. It is hosted by the ASHRAE Presidential
Ad Hoc Committee on Homeland Security and funded through a grant from the Alfred P. Sloan Foundation in New York.

Donald Henderson, M.D., focuses on the risks of biological agents being used as biological weapons. “There are six Class-A agents, which are defined as those possessing characteristics that, if dispersed, could result in illnesses and death of sufficient magnitude as to threaten the integrity of civil government,” Henderson said in a statement last month. “Only through aerosol release could any of them achieve that potential. Thus, the question of air filtration in buildings assumes an especially important role. To date, this has received little attention either at federal
or local level.”

From November 2001 through April 2003, Henderson served as director of the Office of Public Health Emergency Preparedness, which was created to coordinate national response to public health emergencies. He later served as principal science adviser in the Office of Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services.

Henderson, who directed the World Health Organization’s global smallpox eradication campaign from 1966 to 1977, is professor of public health and medicine at the University of Pittsburgh and resident Fellow of the Center for Biosecurity of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center. He is dean emeritus of the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health and a founding director of the Hopkins Center for Civilian Biodefense Strategies.

“We must be made aware of the threats to the well-being of the people who occupy our buildings,” said Lawrence Spielvogel, P.E., chair of the presidential committee. “There is little responsible guidance available to describe the magnitude and extent of those risks, so that we can take appropriate action. Dr. Henderson brings a comprehensive and experienced view of the potential threats from people bent on inflicting harm.” An ASHRAE news release dated March 12 stated that 80 sites had already registered to host the April 14 broadcast, including the Government Education and Training Network, a consortium of 21 federal and military networks operating on the same satellite broadcast. GETN has the potential to broadcast the program to 1,500 sites viewed by employees of Department of Defense and civilian federal government agencies, such as the U.S. Air Force, the U.S. Army, the Federal Aviation Agency, the U.S. Coast Guard and the Environmental Protection Agency. DVDs of the broadcast will be available for purchase from www.ASHRAE.org following the broadcast.

Protection from Airborne Toxins
Should biological attacks occur, a number of companies are investing in various methods to limit the exposure and to do so more quickly than was imagined before. The Hart Senate Office Building in Washington, D.C., was closed for several months after anthrax was detected there in October 2001. But scientists and engineers from the University at Buffalo have developed a device that in minutes could safely and inexpensively destroy airborne biological agents in buildings the size of the Hart building.

The device, called the BioBlower, has immediate applications for homeland security, with the potential to eradicate a wide range of biological pathogens, such as anthrax, smallpox, SARS, influenza, tuberculosis and other toxic airborne species. It destroys pathogens by rapidly heating contaminated air and could be employed either as a portable air-purification unit for first responders at the site of a biological attack or installed as a permanent part of a building’s air-handling system to be activated immediately as soon as biological toxins are detected.

The University at Buffalo has filed for a provisional patent on the BioBlower and is negotiating a licensing arrangement with B3, a Buffalo company that its developers have formed to commercialize it. The BioBlower also could provide a continuous clean air supply in hospitals, as well as military command centers and other battlefield facilities.

“The BioBlower destroys airborne biological agents essentially by sterilizing the air,” said Jim Garvey, Ph.D., professor of chemistry in the University at Buffalo College of Arts and Sciences and a co-inventor of BioBlower, along with John Lordi, Ph.D., research professor, James D. Felske, Ph.D., professor, and Joseph C. Mollendorf, Ph.D., professor, all in the Department of Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering in the University at Buffalo school of Engineering and Applied Sciences.

Garvey noted that the invention represents a quantum leap ahead of the current conventional technology, HEPA paper filters, which are used to trap large airborne spores and need to be changed frequently, stored carefully and subsequently destroyed. “With our device, there are no filters to change and very minimal maintenance,” said Garvey. “The BioBlower indiscriminately destroys all airborne biotoxins via the extreme heating of the gas.” In a series of recent tests performed by scientists in the university’s Department of Microbiology and Immunology and the Calspan-UB Research Center, the BioBlower successfully destroyed more than 99.9 percent of aerosolized spores of a benign anthrax simulant, Bacillus globicii.

“[Bacillus globicii] spores are considered the gold standard for biotesting,” explained Garvey. “Now that we can completely eliminate these hardy bacteria, we can kill any and all airborne biological toxins.” To conduct the tests, microbiology director Dr. Richard Karalus and colleagues devised techniques to inject an aerosol of the Bacillus globicii spores into the BioBlower and recapture them on the exhaust side to see if they were still alive. At temperatures of 50, 100 and 150 degrees Celsius, most of the spores came through unscathed, Garvey said. “But above 200 degrees, in just milliseconds of exposure to that heat, we killed 99.9 percent of them in a single pass,” he said.

Garvey explained that the BioBlower heats the contaminated air by mechanically compressing it as it is being blown rapidly through a mechanical rotary pump. “This recompressive process uniformly increases the temperature of the entire volume of gas, almost instantaneously,” he said, adding that the same type of compressive heating occurs when a tire gets hot as it is inflated with air. “The dramatic effect we observed is due to chemical combustion; these spores simply get burned away to ash,” he said. The BioBlower is well suited to applications in hospitals and other healthcare settings, where airborne infections can be a leading cause of disease and even death. “This technology continuously cycles the air,” said Garvey, “making it ideal for use in isolation wards, because it will kill infectious agents in the air before they can be released outside of the isolated area.”

The device also is applicable to battlefield operations, such as tents, command headquarters and enclosed armored vehicles, where a continuous supply of clean air is essential, he added. According to its developers, the BioBlower is based on a modification of a Roots blower, a mechanical air-pump technology, which has been in existence for more than 100 years, and which has been used for a range of applications from vacuum pumps in research laboratories to superchargers for drag-racing “funny cars.” “It’s a deceptively simple idea,” said Lordi. Roots blowers, he explained, consist of two rotating stainless steel cams that turn in opposite directions so that air is sucked in at one end and pushed out at the other end.

Lordi had been conducting research with Mollendorf and Felske on using a Roots-type mechanism to compressively heat gases. The BioBlower is a modified Roots blower pump capable of extremely high gas-flow rates, up to hundreds of cubic feet per minute, Lordi explained. “In the BioBlower, the entire volume of air ingested by the rotary pump is rapidly compressed and heated to between 200 and 250 degrees Centigrade,” he said. “Then it’s expanded and cooled before being returned – free of any biotoxins – to the area being remediated.” The University at Buffalo team is seeking government and private funding to further test the BioBlower on viruses and other bacteria and also to modify it for destruction of chemical agents as well.

Biotesting with Bacillus globicii was funded by the university’s Center for Advanced Technology, which promotes development and commercialization of research with the support of the New York State Office of Science, Technology and Academic Research. The BioBlower is a direct result of collaborations between chemists in the College of Arts and Sciences, engineers in School of Engineering and Applied Sciences and microbiologists in the School of Medicine and Biomedical Sciences.

The photograph first appears on The Sludge Report, an Internet “news” site of dubious repute. A presidential candidate appears partially nude with a naked porn star. Soon, the photograph travels to computers around the world, and the story is picked up by the major news outlets. Before the clever photographic hoax is exposed, the candidate’s approval rating drops 30 percent.

Sound far-fetched? A similar scenario could have damaged a presidential candidate earlier this year. A photograph showing a young John Kerry consorting with Jane Fonda in an antiwar protest made the same circuit. As it turns out, the photograph was, in reality, two different photographs digitally altered to appear as one.

Did the mainstream press pick up the original photograph and the sad tale it told? Yes. Did it subsequently report the deception? If it did, the correction was buried on the back page. Where was the hoax uncovered? In the online edition of professional photography magazine, Photo District News. The implications of this event go well beyond a political campaign. While the average person may recognize the skill of the makers of movie magic, such as Industrial Light & Magic, in producing images of things that never existed in reality (although at a recent “Star Wars” fan convention, some genuinely
seemed to believe that Yoda actually existed), most people are unaware of the amazing power of a modern personal computer when coupled with high-end imaging software like Adobe Photoshop. Using such programs, a sunny day can be turned into a rainstorm, an empty yard can be filled with sunflowers, and even a politician can be smeared.

In a recent criminal case in Florida, a defendant used “the Photoshop defense” and was acquitted. Based on a smudged handprint enhanced by police using special software, the defense successfully showed that the software could also alter the print in a manner similar to that of Photoshop.
The advent of digital cameras has changed the nature of photographic evidence. Images are no longer the result of the interaction of light and minute grains of silver that are permanently altered on a strip of plastic in a 35 mm film camera. That film can be verified as being an original taken from a particular camera.

In contrast, digital cameras record the image on a device, either a charge-coupled device or a complementary metal oxide semiconductor chip. The information is then converted to computer binary code and then recorded to media storage such as a flash memory card or secure digital memory card.
The information on the storage card is as malleable as any other computer data and there is no immediate permanent unchangeable record of the image.

Although images may also be altered in the traditional darkroom process, the original negative will continue to exist. The science involved in classic darkroom chemistry makes it much more difficult and requires a person with much greater skill to alter an image at the degree of the examples noted above. Most of the time, alterations in the darkroom can be shown to have been “faked” with relative ease. The information from digital storage media taken from a digital camera may be printed directly to newer model inkjet printers but also may be uploaded to the hard drive of a desktop computer. Alterations may be almost impossible to identify.

Digital Imaging and the IEP
Many indoor environmental professionals use photography as a primary element of their reports in noting an existing condition and in supporting the analysis they make of that condition. Following the adage that a picture is worth 1,000 words, the images often present the best argument for remediation or the existence of a serious problem. A client may not understand a lab report, but they can understand what moldy drywall may look like. Also, IEPs often expect to be an expert witness in litigation on a mold claim or may be called as a fact witness. The photographs become evidence in their own right, may bolster the testimony of the expert, or may be used by the expert to refresh his or her recollection. An altered photograph may mean an altered memory.

With digital cameras now outselling film cameras for the first time, most IEPs I speak with have also “gone digital.” The convenience of instant image-checking, the ability to store photographs in a computer with the document files, and the cost factor have all changed the face of photography forever. The term “photography” has been all but replaced by “digital imaging.”

In image-editing software, contrast and color can be corrected or manipulated, perspective can be corrected or manipulated and wholesale changes can be made to selected groups of binary code (referred to as pixels). Programs, sometimes known as ray-tracers, allow a skilled user to integrate multiple mages and align lighting and shadows to the point of making it difficult to distinguish fact from fiction. For example, a homebuilder wishing to illustrate for marketing purposes, the future look of a house under construction may add a lush green lawn, place puffy clouds in the sky, change the color of the house or remove power lines from the backyard – all using a desktop or laptop computer. Whether this brochure would constitute a misrepresentation would depend on the extent of the changes and the anticipated look of the house once completed. If the altered image was distributed with the intent that potential buyers be deceived as to the ultimate product to be purchased, a fairly good argument as to misrepresentation or fraud could be made.

The same level of changes could be made with photographs of the interior of a building that is suffering from mold contamination. The image could be “brightened” to make the mold more readily apparent or, with a little skill, and the use of Photoshop’s built-in “clone” tool, mold may appear in areas where mold did not actually exist. If the color of the mold is made more saturated, is it merely to reflect what the human eye would see, or to inflame the judge or jury as to the real condition? Water stains may appear, creating an impression that the building owner painted them over. Once the data is removed from the media storage card or even if new data is uploaded on the computer’s hard drive, it can be extremely difficult to tell what was original image and what has been altered. Unlike the 35 mm negative, there is no original “strip” of information that can be confirmed to be unaltered. This results in the potential that an unscrupulous IEP could alter the image to benefit his or her client or, even without a nefarious intent, render the IEP a less credible witness if a “hoax” could be alleged by opposing counsel.

In order to understand why this is important, we must address how photographic evidence is admitted in litigation. First, what is a photograph? The Florida Evidence Code defines a photograph as “still photographs, X-ray films, videotapes, and motion pictures” (see Florida Statute Section 90.951(2)). If an “original” is necessary, what constitutes an “original”? The Florida Evidence Code defines “original” of a writing or recording as “the writing or recording itself, or any counterpart intended to have the same effect by a person executing or issuing it.” An “original” of a photograph “includes the negative or any print made from it.” The code further notes, “If data are stored in a computer or similar device, any printout or other output readable by sight and shown to reflect the data accurately is an ‘original’.” Of course, what is an accurate reflection depends on the data downloaded to the computer
in the first place or whether only an altered data file remains. With most software, the data may be overwritten with no trail of the changes ultimately made.

There are two key elements in connection with the admission of documentary evidence, including photographs: first is the relevance of that information to the issue at hand and, second, the verification of that document or photograph as being authentic. Assuming that the photograph is relevant to the facts of the case in question; its authentication then becomes important. Typically, a witness will be proffered, not necessarily the original photographer, who will be asked to testify as to whether the photograph accurately portrays the condition represented thereby. Because, in the past, photographic evidence was very difficult to alter, it would have been unusual that the authenticity of a photograph would be challenged. Because of the ease by which a digital image may be altered, and due to the fact that there is no “original” to confirm the image being proffered, the issue of the accuracy of an image may become a question of debate.

If a homeowner is asked to testify to the accuracy of that image as reflecting the true condition, then the testimony usually takes place many months after a digital image was originally taken. By then, the homeowner’s memory has been affected by his or her own emotions on the subject matter, the passage of time and the fact that mold may grow or recede with changing environmental conditions. Further, how is one to disprove that an image proffered was not taken only the previous week instead of six months earlier, other than by the testimony of the witness? There are no bills from the photofinisher, no date stamp on the back of the prints or other independent means of confirming this time frame.

If the photographer or witness authenticating the image is the indoor environmental professional, his or her testimony may become critical in establishing whether the photograph is accurate or to the extent it may have been enhanced. Clearly, the more enhancements made to a digital image, the greater the potential that either the photograph will not be admitted, or the judge or jury may disregard its implications. Potentially, the veracity of the IEP may be called into question if the alterations appear to have been made in order to support a particular point of view.

It is therefore imperative that an indoor environmental professional consider the chain of custody of this digital information and the nature of any alterations that may be made to a digital image, the time such was made, and when such is “filed” in the computer records. Further, because depositions and a trial may occur long after the image was taken, an indoor environmental professional who expects to be engaged as an expert witness or who otherwise may be asked to testify as a fact witness, should consider the documentary aspects of the images taken.

For example, there are cameras on the market, such as certain models of the Sony Mavica that record the digital data directly on a small compact disc. While the same compact disc can be produced on a computer from downloaded information, it at least provides an avenue by which the original images may be preserved without alteration. In using this type of camera, we would recommend that the original disk be marked as to date and time and be initialed by the photographer. It should then be stored without any changes to the image files or the addition of other altered images in the appropriate “paper” file. If an image is then challenged, it would be far easier for the IEP to identify the “original” information taken directly from the camera and the appearance of the physical condition at the time the picture was made. If due to the lack of quality, the images need minor enhancement for the true condition to be apparent as seen by the human eye, the extent of the enhancements can be duly noted as being authentic to the character of the original if challenged.

As digital cameras shrink in size and market factors change the means by which images are stored, most IEPs will not buy the large cameras that write to a CD or such may, at some point, disappear from the market (After all, for the general consumer market, size, price and convenience will usually outweigh their need for evidence preservation). What can an IEP do with more malleable storage media? With flash memory and similar storage media, it would be important that the information initially uploaded into the computer be preserved in a data file without alteration and burned to a CD and, again, confirmed by the photographer as to date and time and as to such being the unaltered “original.” As with the directly written CD, the disk should be stored in the hard file to verify what was taken by the camera. The evidentiary value of the images are therefore subject to the credibility of the photographer or the other witness called to authenticate the image. No other images, altered or otherwise should be placed on that disk.

Unfortunately, given the malleable nature of computer data, it would be difficult to prove later whether that information was indeed altered. As is the case with many types of evidence the veracity of the photographer may be the sole basis for admissibility.

Michael Greene is a shareholder in the West Palm Beach office of Akerman Senterfitt. His background in architecture and construction have enabled him to develop a substantial practice in the legal aspects of the indoor environment, both in addressing problems as they have arisen, and in establishing protective measures for owners, managers and IAQ professionals. Greene can be reached by e-mail at MSGreene@Akerman.com or by phone at (561) 653-5000.
 

It is early January, and the school district has just received word that it has been granted its requested renovation funding. We are asked to design a replacement ventilation system designed to increase classroom ventilation levels up to today’s standard, which is twice that of the existing system designed about 15 years ago. It is important to the school to provide cooling, either initially or as a future capability. We are also asked to do away with the noisy, drafty, hard-to-maintain individual unit ventilators and to put in a green HVAC ducted system with full direct digital control that will last for 30 years.

Economic feasibility and physical practicality are among the goals of this mission. Other goals are to achieve great indoor air quality and comfort, to require minimal energy consumption, to provide individual room heating control, to accomplish cooling in the future or if possible now. We set the goal of achieving dehumidified outdoor air now, during hot humid weather, knowing that full cooling air conditioning is not a necessity and will cost more.

What initiated this retrofit effort? A local school district had recently heard about the Turner Group’s award-winning Advantage Classroom design, which includes a green HVAC design. However, the feasibility study had budgeted only for replacement of the existing unit ventilators with new unit ventilators with future AC capability. The elementary school was not originally designed with room for ductwork from central systems. We were asked whether we could retrofit an Advantage Classroom designed ducted HVAC system for the limited available budget of $18.10 per square foot.

As with many existing facilities that were designed with either gravity ventilation or unit ventilators, ceiling space for ductwork is limited, making traditional centralized mixed air systems difficult, if not impossible, to install. Furthermore, boiler systems that were designed to compensate for a smaller quantity of outdoor air are often undersized for today’s standard ventilation rates. While these challenges can be overcome, it often results in increased costs and greater complexity of the system. After looking at the details of the facility, and the limited space that was available for ducts, it
was quickly realized that a traditional mixed-air system would be very difficult to install. As such, a preliminary design concept was completed, and we conveyed to the client that they likely could install an Advantage Classroom displacement ventilation system, with dehumidification of outside air (not full air conditioning).

This system was possible because the combined 100 percent outdoor air and displacement airflow approach allows for significant downsizing of ducts, which are often difficult to fit in a building that was not originally designed for them.

As with all of our school classroom designs, the vertical displacement ventilation system would be 100 percent outdoor air, with both energy recovery from exhaust and dehumidification of the outdoor air. Creating this design using a couple of centralized air handlers with full energy recovery, we were able to increase ventilation without increasing boiler capacity.

With this system, we were also able to incorporate direct digital controls that could be integrated into the district’s existing emergency medical services system.

We also determined that we could reuse most of the existing hydronic loop to accommodate a separate baseboard heating system (installed mostly under the perimeter glass windows where it is needed most) with individual room control thermostats. This system will also allow off-hours heating without having to run fans to move air, as they do now.

A System That Works
The H.L. Turner Group Inc. conceived the Advantage Classroom design in 1992 when it designed its own new office space in Harrison, Maine, incorporating a training classroom space. It is based on European concepts. The words “green,” “sustainable” and “high-performance” were not readily discussed by most in the early 1990s, although they were our primary goals then as they are now.

The typical Advantage Classroom design includes the use of vertical displacement ventilation to provide superior occupant comfort (no drafts) and indoor air quality (in classrooms, 100 percent conditioned outdoor air delivered to the occupant) for the smallest use of fan horsepower in a ducted system. With a displacement approach, mixing is purposely avoided, room air is allowed to stratify with stale exhaled air at the ceiling, and fresh conditioned air is delivered down low in the breathing zone. The specific approach we have adopted allows for the downsizing of ductwork and the use of smaller capacity dehumidification equipment when compared to conventional mixed systems. This approach allows it to be used in retrofit applications where other approaches would simply not fit into
the facility.

Additional parts of the original design remain ease of maintenance, the ability to use high-efficiency air filters, individual room heating control and the ability to use operable windows.

Performance: In facilities we have both designed and commissioned, the actual ventilation system has often proven to perform better than predicted when it has been combined with other key factors like efficient lighting, daylighting, and appropriate building shell design. The use of a dehumidification system on the 100 percent make-up air, combined with the superior ventilation efficiency of displacement airflow with energy recovery, provides very reasonable classroom comfort during hot humid weather without the cost and wasted energy inherit with the use of full brut-force air conditioning (conditioning the full cooling load of the room with a mixed air type system with re-circulated air and many air changes per hour).

Recent modeling for the Blackstone Valley Regional Technical High School predicts a 130 percent energy reduction versus the baseline case of ASHRAE 90.1-1992 as we retrofit this system.

Why not unit ventilators? In a climate that must provide heating and cooling, there are many reasons to avoid the use of unit ventilators in classrooms. Traditionally, problems include:

1. unacceptable noise (which may result in hearing/learning disadvantages for someone sitting next to one);
2. resulting cold drafts in classrooms that need varying degrees of cooling over much of their entire operating time, especially in cold climates when sun is allowed to enter a fully occupied classroom;
3. limited air filtration capability and the introduction of polluted air at ground levels;
4. multiple stand-alone air handlers in each classroom, each of which has a full set of complicated controls that must be maintained and integrated into a DDC energy management system;
5. the inability to allow for economical dehumidification of outdoor air or energy recovery opportunity in either summer or winter operation;
6. the cost to install or maintain on a cost-persquare- foot basis including long-term maintenance costs;
7. the fact that unless glycol is added to the hydronic system, the heating coils – which are very close to the outdoor air inlets – often freeze up during power failures, especially when the units get old and the outdoor dampers leak;
8. resultant poor ventilation efficiency, depending on the mode of operation;
9. the fact that teachers often turn them off due to any of the above problems; and
10. the fact that they require large amounts of maintenance time by a fairly talented HVAC technician if they are to be serviced and maintained to keep them working properly.

As long as the owner can utilize or outsource some reasonable HVAC expertise, central units can have simplified control interfaces, can require less maintenance time because there are far fewer of them in a given school, and can be designed for very long life with a normal maintenance interval of three months. In addition, bringing exhaust air and outdoor air together through centralized systems often makes the use of energy recovery a cost-effective option.

Results: Users are happy to be getting a ducted, high-quality, long-life, proven green HVAC system, when they thought they were going to be
stuck again with multiple unit ventilators. Rather than being a challenge to incorporate, the unique elements of the Advantage Classroom design
approach makes this system a very good alternative that is able to overcome the many constraints inherent in existing school buildings, not otherwise easily overcome with traditional systems. The retrofit is in the final stages of design and will be constructed and commissioned this summer.

“Advantage Classroom” is a trademark of The H.L. Turner Group. For cost and licensing information, plus some success stories, visit www.advantageclassroom.com.

William A. Turner, MS, PE, is president of Turner Building Science LLC, a subsidiary of The H.L. Turner Group Inc. in Concord, N.H. He has more than 25 years of experience in IAQ/HVAC evaluation and development of solutions for building system problems. He supervises a group of engineers, industrial hygienists, architects and building scientists who focus on developing solutions for existing facilities and the design of high-performance buildings. Turner can be reached by e-mail at bturner@turnerbuildingscience.com or by phone at (207) 583-4571 ext. 11.

Steve M. Caulfield, PE, CIH, is vice president of Turner Building Science. He has more than 15 years of experience in IAQ/HVAC evaluation and development of solutions for building system problems. Caulfield can be reached by email at scaulfield@turnerbuildingscience.com or by phone at (207) 583-4571 ext. 14.

Brian Decker, EIT, is a project engineer at Turner Building Science. He is an expert at HVAC control troubleshooting and design and can be reached by e-mail at bdecker@turnerbuildingscience.com or by phone at (207) 583-4571 ext. 17.