Industry Develops Plans to Prepare for Pandemic

Fla. Senate's Mold Bill Sponsor Withdraws Support

Cleanup Guidelines Explain 'Mold Cold' to Helpers

Publisher's Perspective: How Can You Sleep at Night?

Air Cleaners May Remove Gas in Mobile Homess

VOICES

“The goal begins [to be] to collect data for data’s sake, and that’s not the way we’re gonna solve problems.”

— Ed Light, an instructor for a professional development course on resolving occupants’ IEQ complaints, referring to what he characterized as the popular insistence that industrial hygienists should sample because it is assumed that is all they do

Word on the Street 

CLEANFAX HONORS PIONEER, RENEGADE
The life of the late Ed York, who was the founder of several organizations in the cleaning and restoration industry, is commemorated in the May issue of Cleanfax magazine. The publication’s founder and former editor John Downey writes that York, who died in March at age 79, was unpopular and often ostracized in the very community he helped to shape. Since the 1960s, York has stirred up controversy, first challenging “the elites” by championing a “controversial cleaning method” known as steam cleaning, or hot water extraction, Downey writes.

York’s first business was the carpet-cleaning industry’s earliest mail-order supply distributor, Steam Services, and Downey credits him with a prolific four-year period between 1972 and 1975 in which York founded the International Institute of Carpet and Upholstery Certification (today’s IICRC), the Society of Cleaning Technicians (today’s SCRT) and Disaster Kleenup International (lasting today under the same name). Downey writes that York eventually saw that “‘the elites’ had taken over many of the babies he and Wanda had birthed. He recognized the irony.” The Cleanfax piece ends on a positive note: “... [W]hile many of the institutions he created have disassociated from him, Ed York’s legacy lives on. It lives on in all the people he helped and the hearts he touched. When all was said and done, Ed York knew what was important, and he left his mark there, where it can never be erased.”

READY FOR THE HURRICANE SEASON
The federal government last month said it would be more ready than ever for this year’s hurricane season. That may be true, but it is quite possible that insurers in the United States are even more ready. Faced with the prospect of absorbing costs from catastrophic losses, insurance companies have apparently been doing well in the past. A report by MSNBC last month said U.S. “insurers [are] in great shape” – “flush with cash and thriving.” MSNBC’s article, published online May 8, said “Last year cost property and casualty insurers $57 billion from three super-storms” but that “insurers have abundant capital to pay claims. Some are so flush they have hinted at stock buybacks or acquisitions, despite huge claims from two unusually busy storm seasons.” The article referenced several insurers as examples of this trend. It quoted one of the insurers – AIG, or American International Group Inc. – as having “said in March it could handle another year like 2004, when storms blew down or washed away $27 billion of insured property, mostly in Florida.”

COME ON AND TAKE A FREE RIDE
“The fungus, my friend, is blowing in the wind.” That’s an adapted lyric that U.S. Geological Survey researcher Dale Griffin could have sung last month while he explained to microbiologists that bacteria and fungi from Africa have crossed the Atlantic Ocean and arrived on land in the Western hemisphere. Griffin’s May 24 presentation at the annual meeting of the American Society of Microbiology in Orlando described the microbes’ transatlantic transport as hitchhiking on desert dust. Griffin says the phenomenon known as desert-dust storms is capable of distributing 2.2 billion metric tons “of soil and dried sediment through Earth’s atmosphere each year”; as many as a billion bacterial cells may be present in a single gram of desert soil, his research indicates. Griffin spent five weeks in May and June 2003 sampling the air aboard a ship in the middle of the ocean, noting similarities between daily counts he collected to dust storm activity in the Sahara desert. “This study presents evidence of early summer survival and transport of microorganisms from North Africa to a mid-Atlantic research site,” his research shows.

He said one-fifth of fungal isolates that could be identified by their species turned out to be “recognized pathogens to humans, animals, plants, and trees,” including a fungus that causes canker in the Florida sycamore tree and another that infects Florida carrots. “It is tempting to speculate that transatlantic transport of dust could be a vector to renew reservoirs of some plant and animal pathogens in North America and could also be a source of new diseases,” said Griffin.

NEW FROM THE SHARPER IMAGE
The latest air cleaner from Sharper Image Corp., announced May 8, is the corporation’s first-ever fan-driven air cleaner. The company said the new product, the Hybrid GP, “offers excellent CADR” and “kills essentially one hundred percent of bacteria, viruses and mold spores in the air it cleans – all without a UV bulb to power or replace.” According to a press release, the Hybrid GP is an electrostatic precipitator featuring the OzoneGuard grid that has been part of the revamped marketing campaign for the Ionic Breeze air cleaners since last July. The company says this technology “converts virtually all the ozone in the air that passes through the unit into oxygen.”

THE PRENATAL EFFECT OF POLLUTANTS
A team of researchers says it has found evidence that pregnant women’s exposure to ambient pollutants could prove harmful to the brains of their developing fetuses. Led by Columbia University environmental health scientist Frederica P. Perera, the study, which is to be published in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives, began by measuring pregnant women’s exposure to polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, or PAHs, pollutants that come from fossil fuel combustion common to vehicles and power plants. The children’s cognitive abilities were assessed each year through age 3, according to a summary of the study detailed in Science News on April 29. From the Science News article: “By that age, the 42 children whose mothers had been exposed to the most PAHs ‘scored significantly less well on a test of cognitive development’ than did the rest of the children in the group, Perera says. The youngsters of highly exposed mothers ‘were more than twice as likely to be developmentally delayed, according to this test,’ she adds.”

Industry Develops Plans to Prepare for Pandemic
By Steve Sauer

Avian flu may come to the United States by September, said Dr. Donald A. Henderson, a former scientific advisor to the secretary of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, although he predicts that the flu’s spread in the country would not be as rapid as in South Asia.

Speaking to attendees of the American Industrial Hygiene Conference and Exposition during the opening session May 15 in Chicago, Henderson faulted estimates of 40 percent absenteeism as exaggerated, saying the figure should be closer to 15 percent. Henderson, who is senior adviser and resident fellow of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center’s Center for Biosecurity, also said he expects the pandemic to last only 10 to 12 weeks. Effective communication with the public, he said, should aim “to diminish anxiety and avoid panic.”

Henderson’s keynote address coincided with the release of an American Industrial Hygiene Association guideline by AIHA’s Biosafety and Environmental Microbiology Committee called “The Role of the Industrial Hygienist in a Pandemic.” Developed in cooperation with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, AIHA Guideline 7-2006 contains “practical advice for businesses to follow to keep their workplaces as healthy as possible in the event of a pandemic,” AIHA President-Elect Frank Renshaw told reporters during a media luncheon.

Some members of the Biosafety Committee, which is credited with writing the guideline, learned during their committee meeting on May 14 that the publication was less than 24 hours away from being made available for purchase at AIHA’s expo booth.
At the committee’s meeting on May 14, an item on the committee’s printed meeting agenda referred to the pandemic publication as an item for discussion, referring to it as a “fact sheet,” an earlier format the project was to employ.

A printed copy of the guideline had been made available for viewing earlier on May 14, at the all-day Sixth International Indoor Air Quality Symposium. Outside the meeting room during afternoon breaks, AIHA continuing education planner Samantha Seigman let symposium participants be among the very first people ever to thumb through the printed guideline.

The member price for the guideline was listed at $35 and $45 for nonmembers.

Presenting during the IAQ symposium on the guideline, certified industrial hygienist and certified biosafety professional Dina M. Sassone of the Los Alamos National Laboratory said the guideline came to fruition as the result of an initial suggestion regarding “respiratory protection for avian flu” by a member of AIHA and that the industrial hygiene community “could use information as soon as possible.”

Sassone participated as one of 19 people on the project team that created the guideline, including project coordinator Aimée O’Grady, an AIHA staff member.

Other resources on pandemic preparedness already exist from the CDC and World Health Organization, Sassone told a crowd of nearly 200 IAQ symposium attendees. AIHA “is not reinventing the wheel or trying to be a health expert,” she said, but the association wished to delineate the specific duties industrial hygienists should undertake in a pandemic.

“The role of the industrial hygienist in overall emergency preparedness has been greatly expanded and has become critically important,” said Sassone. After outlining various administrative and engineering controls industrial hygienists should set and other tasks they should accomplish, Sassone said a great deal of controversy exists pertaining to the issue of what type of personal protective equipment is necessary for first responders to wear when dealing with patients. She said this topic presents is “an ongoing discussion.”

CDC guidelines permit the use of surgical masks when N95 respirators are not available. Sassone said that from an industrial hygienist’s standpoint, an N95 respirator should always be worn in the face of a pandemic to prevent the spread of an infection. The debate, she said, stems from the question of practicality when there are not enough respirators to go around. Sassone said the industrial hygiene community believes a surgical mask cannot provide adequate protection in this situation.

Dr. John Halpin, chief resident of the School of Public Health at University of Illinois-Chicago, also touched on the debate over personal protective equipment later in the day during his presentation titled “Pandemic Flu from a Corporate Perspective: Preparations to Protect Workers and Maintain Business Continuity.” Halpin said recommendations by WHO, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and the International Occupational Hygiene Association conflict with each other, pertaining to PPE.

He presented a slide citing two instances in which WHO says surgical masks can be considered a second alternative or backup to N95 respirators. In another slide, Halpin cites a Health and Human Services document that mentions “surgical or procedure masks” for PPE but does not mention at all the additional protection afforded by N95 respirators. In a third consecutive slide, Halpin cited a position paper by the International Occupational Hygiene Association that argues against both of the previous authorities.

“Surgical masks, by virtue of both their filtration capabilities and inability to effect a seal to the wearer’s face, are ineffective in protecting the wearer from inhalation of such aerosols,” or droplet nuclei, Halpin quoted the position paper as saying.

ASHRAE to Address Pandemic in Seminar
While the topic was being addressed at AIHce in Chicago, another industry organization underlined its own effort to educate its members on emergency preparedness. The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers has scheduled a seminar titled “Preparing for the Next Pandemic: Controlling Transmission of Infectious Diseases in Hospitals” to take place June 26, as part of its annual meeting.

Sponsoring the seminar is ASHRAE Technical Committee 9.6, which deals with healthcare facilities. It is mostly in hospitals and other such facilities that infectious diseases were transmitted in the 2003 SARS outbreak and other recent events like that, said Michael Keen, P.E., who is the chair of the seminar.

Scheduled to lead the seminar is Hua Qian, a graduate student at the University of Hong Kong. According to ASHRAE, he will focus “on airborne/droplet transmission of infectious diseases and effectiveness of isolation room ventilation.” An ASHRAE press release quotes Qian as saying, “Viruses in emerging infectious diseases might have jumped from animals (or birds) to humans, but it is mostly in buildings that these viruses could easily spread among us. The impact of ventilation on infectious diseases transmission and the importance of engineers in designing and installing sound ventilation systems to prevent this spread must be an integral part of the discussion.”

According to ASHRAE: “The seminar presents theories and experimental results of transmission of airborne and droplet infectious diseases. Applications for effective design of hospital spaces, ventilation systems and environmental conditions are reviewed, including isolation rooms, surgical suites and entire isolation care facilities.”

ASHRAE’s annual meeting is scheduled to take place June 24–28 in Quebec City.
 

Fla. Senate’s Mold Bill Sponsor Withdraws Support
By Steve Sauer

For the third year in a row, a shot at requiring Florida to regulate professionals in the mold industry has failed. Eleven months after a bill with near unanimous support by both chambers of the state legislature was vetoed by the governor, another attempt toward regulating the activities of mold remediators and assessors passed the House but stalled in the Senate.

By the time House Bill 161 was introduced in the House on March 7, its form sharply contrasted the version Gov. Jeb Bush rejected in June 2005. Changes to the bill were mostly the result of a series of public workshops held last year at the governor’s instruction. HB 161 bore the influential markings of those August and September workshops, transforming in ways believed to mute apprehension Bush had expressed in a letter accompanying his veto. House committees further amended the bill in March and April, and the resulting bill unanimously passed the House floor on May 1.

At some point in the process, the author of the companion bill in the Senate became disenchanted with the direction HB 161 had taken, a spokesperson told IE Connections last month. No longer persuaded that consensus could be reached among legislators on the issue of regulating mold professionals, Sen. Mike Bennett (R) stopped pushing for his own version of the bill to be heard in Senate committees, and the bill ultimately failed.

Cheryl Ennis, one of Bennett’s two legislative assistants in the Republican senator’s district office in Bradenton, did not indicate exactly what aspects of the House bill soured the senator’s opinion of it. She offered only that Bennett and the staff came to believe that the House version had been “watered down” and that even Bush opposes such regulation.

“The basic problem is that there’s pretty much a split between the people who feel it needs to be regulated and those who don’t,” Ennis said in a phone interview last month. She added, “The governor’s against the additional regulations.”

Explaining his veto, Bush wrote that he feared mandating strict requirements of education and experience would put qualified individuals and companies out of business. Stressing that a grandfathering mechanism written into the law could satisfy this concern, the governor directed the Department of Business and Professional Regulation to consult with stakeholders in arriving at a compromise that would protect both the industry and its consumers.

Bennett’s version of the legislation, Senate Bill 1046, was nearly identical to the bill Bush vetoed last June. For one thing, it called for the state’s Construction Industry Licensing Board to set fees for a self-funded licensing program for mold assessors and remediators.

HB 161, on the other hand, specified that existing certifications would be recognized under the law without the need for a licensing program.
While leading the public workshops for the Department of Business and Professional Regulation, Kyle Mitchell, the department’s special counsel, frequently called the prospect of introducing another state licensing program was unnecessary and undesirable.

The department currently regulates many categories of occupations, ranging from auctioneers and barbers to embalmers and geologists, including asbestos consultants and contractors.

Under HB 161, the call for the state to recognize certifications that already existed would have distinguished Florida’s mold program from those already passed in Texas and Louisiana, where professionals must apply for licenses and are subject to state-mandated fees and knowledge tests.

Another of the provisions that emerged from last year’s department workshops and was ultimately incorporated exclusively into HB 161 required industry certifications to be accredited by an entity such as the Council of Engineering and Scientific Specialty Boards or the American National Standards Institute.

HB 161 and SB 1046 bore little resemblance to each other, and little progress was made in advancing the bill through Senate committees. The measure passed the Regulated Industries Committee on March 7 and the Commerce and Consumer Services Committee on March 8, both times unanimously, but did not receive hearings in the two other committees to which it was assigned.

Ennis explained that Bennett thought pushing for the bill to be heard in Senate committees would be a wasted effort. “It just never got to where there was enough consensus to move” the bill, she said.

SB 1046 had been referred to the Senate’s Criminal Justice and General Government Appropriations committees, but neither body scheduled a hearing for it.

HB 161 passed four committees between March 23 and April 20 – the Business Regulation Committee on March 23, the Insurance Committee on April 5, the Administration Appropriations Committee on April 17, and finally the Commerce Council on April 20 – before the full vote on the House floor. Business Regulation Committee member Rep. Bruce Kyle (R) was the only House member to vote against HB 161 during the committee process. He joined all 116 of his colleagues present for the May 1 vote on the House floor in support of the bill, and it began to proceed to the Senate.

The Florida legislature’s regular session concluded on May 5.

Aaron Trippler, director of government affairs for the American Industrial Hygiene Association, told IE Connections last month he was glad the Florida bill died. Responding to a question posed during AIHA’s Indoor Environmental Quality Committee meeting on May 15, Trippler said it is a flawed bill that would have allowed countless unqualified individuals to practice mold remediation and assessment legally.

He also said there are still too many questionable certification programs that do not require applicants to possess the same types of qualifications as do the American Board of Industrial Hygiene’s Certified Industrial Hygienist and Certified Associate Industrial Hygienist programs. Trippler said he is against any legislation that gives credibility to such questionable certifications.

Rep. Carl J. Domino (R), who sponsored the House versions of the bill during both the 2005 and 2006 legislative sessions, addressed the topic of regulating Florida’s mold professionals during the annual meeting of the Indoor Air Quality Association last October. Speaking during a legislative summit during the meeting, Domino said he was confident the bill would become law in 2006, creating regulation that would serve the interests of mold professionals and consumers.

IAQA was one organizational member of the Florida Coalition on Healthy Indoor Environments, a lobbying organization that provided input during the department workshops last year and tracked the legislation. The coalition also consisted of the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification and a chapter that originally belonged to the American Indoor Air Quality Council but shifted to IAQA as a result of the organizations’ unification and consolidation at the beginning of this year.

The coalition also received organizational support from the Indoor Environmental Standards Organization, the Indoor Environmental Institute and the National Air Duct Cleaners Association. Corporate supporters of the coalition were the Orlando-area remediation firm MSEA Services, the Clearwater-based IAQ remediation network Ductbusters, Hollywood-based IAQ firm Environmental Research & Restoration, law firm Akerman Senterfitt, mold assessment and remediation training provider Certified Mold Free, and IAQ analytical lab corporation Aerotech Laboratories Inc.

Colorado
Just days before Colorado’s legislative session ended on May 10, lawmakers in both chambers passed a bill that would prohibit insurers and agents from specifying a business that would be required to perform an appraisal or repair on personal property. At press time, House Bill 1006 was awaiting action by Gov. Bill Owens to approve or to veto the legislation.

The measure garnered the support of the Association of Specialists in Cleaning and Restoration, with some ASCR members and officials, including President Brian Spiegel and Executive Director Don Manger, supporting the bill’s passage. Spiegel proclaimed in an April news release that the bill sees “consumer freedom of choice” triumphing over a perceived “conflict of interest.”

Connecticut
A piece of legislation potentially impacting the work of mold remediation contractors passed both chambers of Connecticut’s General Assembly on May 3, the last day of its regular session. Senate Bill 317, which revises several public health statutes and orders the state’s Department of Public Health to establish a mandatory mold-remediation protocol for contractors, awaits the approval of Gov. M. Jodi Rell before becoming law.

Louisiana
House Bill 1365, a new version of an earlier bill that would add mold assessment to the scope of Louisiana’s existing licensing program for mold remediators, was still seeking the chamber’s approval at press time. While both remediators and assessors would answer to the state’s Department of Environmental Quality under the bill, it exempts individuals with at least five years of experience as mold assessors from having to obtain a state license. The bill also sets minimum requirements in age, education, education, department-approved course work and insurance level for applicants, as well as application and license fees.

The state legislature is scheduled to adjourn on June 19.

Maine
In Maine, Gov. John Baldacci signed Legislative Document No. 1971 into law on April 10, creating a task force that will study mold remediation practices and the potential for developing mold cleanup standards. The task force will also study the effectiveness of building standards in helping to prevent mold.

The Association of Specialists in Cleaning and Restoration tackled the issue of so-called “Katrina cough” or “mold cold” with a set of guidelines issued early last month. The stated purpose of the guidelines, which can be downloaded for free from ASCR International’s Web site, is “to help ensure that [volunteers] return to their homes safe and healthy.”

The eight-page document covers many of the physical and emotional health hazards, including some “long-term hazards to occupants if cleanup does not include proper decontamination of surfaces prior to rebuilding.” It continues: “Occupants of buildings improperly restored following the Mississippi River flooding of the 1990s suffered a host of respiratory and physical ailments that began to surface months and years after the rebuilding.” It said the Institute of Medicine’s 2004 report “Damp Indoor Spaces and Health” supports the earlier findings on such health outcomes.

According to the guidelines, health hazards range from lead and mercury deposits present in porous building materials after flooding to post-traumatic stress disorders.
“ASCR members have been working throughout the Gulf Coast region since Hurricane Katrina hit last August,” ASCR President Brian Spiegel said in a press release. “What they’ve seen and experienced tells us that the thousands of volunteers headed to that area to work need as much information as possible to be properly prepared for what they’ll encounter. Our members are used to working under these conditions and seeing this type of destruction, and even they are affected by the physical and emotional conditions.”

The guidelines also pose six fundamental questions for potential volunteers to consider before embarking on their benevolent cause: “Where are you going to stay? Where will you shower? How are you going to eat? How will you travel around the area? How will you manage the work? Who are you partnering with after you arrive?” Attempting to steer volunteers toward some concrete answers to these questions, the guidelines recommend partnering with local organizations or churches and getting appropriate immunizations.

In addition, the guidelines detail six basic cleanup procedures for contaminated surfaces and materials. The sixth step in cleanup, drying, contains a specially highlighted note to readers: “Failure to allow adequate drying prior to reconstruction can trap moisture in the building, which can cause structural damage and potential health problems in the future.”

It also advises against the use of “bleach as a sanitizing agent for use after flooding.” On this topic, ASCR’s advice is: “Bleach is not recommended for wholesale decontamination of structures because it is not a good cleaner, is deactivated by soil and organic matter, reacts with other chemicals [and] is corrosive.”

ASCR lists specific items volunteers should bring for the sake of personal hygiene, and it recommends full personal protective equipment. “Respiratory protection is mandatory given the conditions,” the guidelines read. “Full body coverings such as Tyvek or Kleenguard suits are also a key piece of protective equipment which will have to be used inside most structures until the demolition and decontamination activities are completed.”

The guidelines continue with the subject of respiratory protection: “Simple dust masks are simply inadequate given the documented hazards that the volunteers face. Respirators with HEPA cartridges or dust masks with an N-95 or N-100 rating should be used by any workers restoring hurricane damaged structures.”

The new set of guidelines, which was released to the public just in advance of this year’s hurricane season, can be accessed online at www.ascr.org under the link for “Katrina Resources.”

You need to cross the street. Traffic is clear in both directions, but the sidewalk is 100 feet to your left. You see no harm in dashing across from where you stand and indeed make it safely to the other side.

You walk into a convenience store to purchase several items. As you are shopping, your hands become overloaded so you drop a pack of gum into your pocket. When you go the cashier, you forget about the gum. After you exit the store, you realize your error but decide not to turn back.

You decide to become certified in mold assessment. You take a one-day course and are awarded certification, despite not having experience or other education in microbial issues. When your customers ask if you are qualified, you use your certification credential to validate your mold inspection competency.

Each of these three scenarios poses an ethical challenge to your consciousness. Some readers would do none these things. Some would do all. Each of us has our own set of ethical standards by which we live.

Jaywalking is unsafe and disrupts traffic. Shoplifting causes businesses to lose money and the cost of goods and services to increase. Both are illegal.

Performing mold-assessment services without having extensive training and experience is likely to provide consumers with inadequate evaluations of the environmental conditions in their homes or buildings. The consequences could range from unnecessary and expensive remediation work to compromising the health and safety of customers. While you could get sued for your incompetence, these actions probably aren’t illegal unless you work in Texas or Louisiana.

Four years ago, I was positive that mold assessment and remediation would become regulated activities across the country. Abuses by practitioners, coupled with charges of inflated claims paid by the insurance industry, caused state legislatures to consider passing mold bills in several states. The industry was buzzing about it.

Texas and Louisiana, where the “mold is gold” moniker applied particularly well, were the first states to regulate. That was in 2002–2003. Now, you have to carry a state license to perform mold-related services in those states, and licensing requirements include education, training, experience and testing.

Eyes turned to Florida as the next state likely to pass mold legislation requiring licensing. Last month, for the third year in a row, mold legislation was proposed but did not get made into law in Florida. And while other states’ lawmakers have considered or proposed mold legislation this term, very few laws other than study bills are expected to pass.

The outlook for regulation in the mold-assessment and -remediation fields is far less positive today than it was four years ago. Partly as a result, there is a movement underway to make voluntary certifications for mold assessment, remediation, and IAQ consulting more meaningful through third-party accreditation. Third-party accreditation bodies, such as the National Commission for Certifying Agencies and the Council of Engineering and Scientific Specialty Boards, establish rigorous standards for certification programs. These standards require that a certification validate not only knowledge via testing but also that candidates meet minimum prerequisites for experience and education through an authenticated verification process.

At the same time part of the industry is moving toward making voluntary certifications more meaningful, there are other organizations willing to make ethical concessions to award certification as quickly and effortlessly as possible.

I doubt anybody loses sleep because they jaywalked. Few would toss and turn in the night because they inadvertently walked out of a store with a pack of gum they didn’t purchase. But I wonder if people who take eight-hour, instant mold certifications have prescriptions to Ambien. I know I’d need one.

For the people living inside the 94,000 trailers issued in Mississippi by the Federal Emergency Management Agency, life isn’t easy. With the destruction of not only homes but also large chunks of infrastructure, order has been slow to return to regions affected by Hurricane Katrina and other storms. Many of the people now living in trailers and recreational vehicles provided by the government are unaware of some of the recommended precautions for living in a manufactured home. Due to the bureaucratic confusion that has complicated relief efforts, already well documented in the media, some of the units provided fall somewhat short of optimum conditions for human occupation.

As was the case with portable classrooms in high schools and elementary schools, identifying and resolving IAQ problems is an exercise in trial and error. Though only one case of severe reactions to formaldehyde off-gassing inside a FEMA trailer has been reported, low air turnover in new mobile homes is known to cause higher than normal indoor air levels of formaldehyde, which off-gasses from interior components including insulation, particle board products used in walls, cabinetry and furniture, carpets and adhesives. Their new occupants may suffer from symptoms of formaldehyde exposure without even realizing it.

In portable classrooms, IAQ problems became a concern when elementary and high schools began using them as a quick and relatively inexpensive way to accommodate increasing student populations. Although the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry hesitates to say whether or not children are more susceptible to formaldehyde gas than adults, many cases of children becoming ill due to IAQ problems in the portable classrooms were reported. A 2004 study conducted on portable classrooms in California highlighted the necessity of providing a continuous supply of outdoor air.

Noisy HVAC systems were a common complaint from the teachers, who frequently turned them off. The Washington Post cited a Potomac elementary school with 41 out of 115 students who spent time in portable classrooms reporting headaches, colds, and sinus infections. Also as a parallel to the FEMA trailers, the trailers used as classrooms have been criticized for their lack of aesthetic appeal.

Boston-based lawyer David Governo notes that IAQ is considered a matter of “comfort and health” rather than safety. The safety standards applied to the trailers provided by FEMA would cover the obvious, like steps that are not slippery and appropriately positioned handrails. For building standards to be adjusted, a statistically significant portion of the population would have to be affected, and so far that just isn’t the case when it comes to indoor environmental sensitivities. The American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers’ ventilation standard 62-2001 deems “air in which there are no known contaminants at harmful concentrations, as determined by cognizant authorities, and with which a substantial majority (80 [percent] or more) of the people exposed do not express dissatisfaction” to be good enough for everybody.

Most people’s bodies can safely break down airborne formaldehyde and expel it through the urine or the breath, according to toxicology reports from the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry. Formaldehyde’s high reactivity and water solubility, combined with the human body’s ability to absorb and break it down rapidly, can make it irritating to the mucous membranes. At increased levels, researchers have noted certain neurological effects such as heavy-headedness, fatigue and slowed reaction times.

The ATSDR’s reports on formaldehyde state that the gas is very noticeable in new mobile homes, so it strongly recommends good ventilation in mobile homes for the first two months in order to speed up formaldehyde off-gassing. The Manufactured Homes Association and the Recreational Vehicle Industry Association also make this recommendation. Reducing or eliminating cigarette smoke and controlling moisture levels inside the mobile home also help to reduce levels of formaldehyde. FEMA’s trailers, though equipped with air conditioners, were likely never given the chance to off-gas properly before being distributed, a representative of the Manufactured Housing Institute suggests. For that very reason, the MHI representative sees the fact that thousands of trailers remain undistributed as a good thing.

The MHI representative went on to express exasperation over FEMA’s refusal to take the association’s advice about the type of vapor barriers required in mobile homes destined for warm, humid climates. A report in April by KNOE-TV8, the CBS affiliate in Monroe, La., reveals that an overabundance of moisture trapped inside the mobile homes’ walls will likely lead to mold problems. The necessary modifications to the vapor barriers described in the news story are exactly what the MHI recommended when it received the government’s order for 20,000 mobile homes for Katrina victims in the fall of 2005 – recommendations that FEMA ignored. According to KNOE, FEMA has refused to comment on the structural oversight; FEMA also did not respond to repeated messages requesting information for this story.

The American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists has established 0.3 parts per million as the ceiling limit for the workplace. According to regulations, if detected levels are higher than 0.3, action must be taken to reduce them. Richard Gullickson, a certified industrial hygienist and consultant for Meridian Engineering and Technology, describes the odor of formaldehyde, detectable at 0.07 ppm, as “pungent and irritating.” Over the years, studies linking formaldehyde exposure to the formation of cancers in laboratory animals have led experts to classify formaldehyde as a suspected human carcinogen. ACGIH ceiling levels have declined accordingly, from 10 ppm in 1946 to today’s 0.3 ppm. At 10 ppm, according to Gullickson, “breathing becomes difficult” and the formation of tears in the eyes becomes “massive and intolerable.”

Case Study: The Stewarts
Paul and Melody Stewart of Bay St. Louis, Miss., were extremely grateful to receive their FEMA trailer in December. Even though their home had been a comfortable two-story, 1,500-square-foot house, their months in a tent had been hard, so the 300-square-foot camper seemed cozy. However, Paul Stewart said a strong chemical odor was immediately evident in the trailer. Tests confirmed levels of formaldehyde gas inside at 0.22 ppm.

Alarmed, the Stewarts did some research and found the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health’s recommended exposure limit for occupational exposure (eight-hour time-weighted average) of 0.016 ppm and a 15-minute ceiling limit of 0.1 ppm. The Stewarts notified FEMA, examined their options, and purchased a residential air purifier equipped with HEPA and impregnated activated carbon filters.

The Stewarts also removed all of the particleboard cabinetry in their trailer. They decided to test the formaldehyde in a relative’s trailer, have that relative run an air purifier for a few days, and then test the levels again. As of press time, this process had yet to be completed, with the test results on their way back from the Florida testing center.

Solutions
There are two available technologies for the treatment of indoor formaldehyde problems. Dr. Richard Shaughnessy, program director of IAQ research at the University of Tulsa, names chemisorption and photocatalytic oxidation as the two best methods for deployment by a portable air cleaner. He stresses the importance of using a specially impregnated activated carbon blend for chemisorption purposes, since formaldehyde will not adhere to regular activated carbon pores.

In Shaughnessy’s own words: “[C]hemisorption involves electron transfer and is essentially a bond-forming chemical reaction between the surface and the absorbed molecule or between two absorbed chemicals. Chemical reaction can occur only when the molecules absorb, or go into solution with elements of the substrate or with other reactive reagents that are manufactured into the sorbent. This enables the sorbent to form chemical bonds with the contaminant molecule. This binds it to the sorbent substrate or converts it into other benign chemical compounds. These products of reaction either remain in the substrate or revert to gaseous state and return to the air stream. For example, one common chemisorbent employs potassium permanganate [KMnO4] as an active oxidation reagent impregnated into an alumina, silica, or zeolite substrate pellet. This chemisorbent will convert formaldehyde [HCHO], for example, into benign water and carbon dioxide [H2O and CO2] as products of an oxidation reaction that are desorbed back into the air stream as innocuous constituents. Other more complex reactions result in compounds that bind to the sorbent substrate. Once bound, the contaminant is chemically altered and cannot escape back into the air stream. To be effective on formaldehyde the air cleaner must employ a sorbent as such that targets this particular compound. Most air cleaners again do not do this (although some manufacturers employ sorbent combinations that may be useful in a broader spectrum of VOCs). In addition, photocatalytic oxidation is becoming more of an option that may be attractive in the long run.”

Shaughnessy warns that with photocatalytic oxidation, or PCO, “unless proper residence time within the unit is sufficient for complete oxidation, one may actually form aldehydes from incomplete oxidation of other VOCs.” Dr. Bill Jacoby, affiliated with Penn State’s Department of Architectural Engineering, confirms: “Technical issues that must be confronted before PCO reactors can be used in this application [IAQ] include the formation of products of incomplete oxidation, reaction rate inhibition due to humidity, mass transport issues associated with high-flow rate systems, catalyst deactivation and inorganic contamination (dust and soil).”

Jacoby also provides the following technical information, which is available at www.engr.psu.edu/ae/iec/abe/control/photocatalytic.asp:

“Titanium dioxide (TiO2) is a semiconductor photocatalyst with a band gap energy of 3.2 eV. When this material is irradiated with photons of less than 385 nm, the band gap energy is exceeded and an electron is promoted from the valence band to the conduction band. The resultant electron-hole pair has a lifetime in the space-charge region that enables its participation in chemical reactions. The most widely postulated reactions are shown here:

OH- + h+ → OH
O₂ + e- → O₂-

Hydroxyl radicals and super-oxide ions are highly reactive species that will oxidize volatile organic compounds adsorbed on the catalyst surface. They will also kill and decompose adsorbed bioaerosols. The process is referred to as heterogeneous photocatalysis – or, more specifically, photocatalytic oxidation, or PCO.

Several attributes of PCO make it a strong candidate for indoor air quality applications. Pollutants, particularly VOCs, are preferentially adsorbed on the surface and oxidized to (primarily) carbon dioxide. Thus, rather than simply changing the phase and concentrating the contaminant, the absolute toxicity of the treated air stream is reduced, allowing the photocatalytic reactor to operate as a self-cleaning filter relative to organic material on the catalyst surface.

Photocatalytic reactors may be integrated into new and existing HVAC systems due to their modular design, room temperature operation, and negligible pressure drop. PCO reactors also feature low power consumption, potentially long service life, and low maintenance requirements. These attributes contribute to the potential of PCO technology to be an effective process for removing and destroying low level pollutants in indoor air, including bacteria, viruses and fungi.”

Exposure to formaldehyde gas remains a problematic issue since not everyone reacts to it in the same way. The available technology can be effective but only if employed carefully. For some people, the price of an air cleaner equipped for formaldehyde gas reduction may keep it out of reach and, by the same token, it is unlikely that the government would provide portable air cleaners as part of current or future large-scale relief efforts. The people living in FEMA-provided mobile homes might be well served by an information campaign advising them as to the relative dangers of formaldehyde gas and what measures they could take to alleviate the problem. Proper ventilation, the removal of particleboard furnishings, and humidity control can all help in the absence of VOC-specific air purification technology.

Meanwhile, may we all find success as we strive toward greater efficiency in this and other IAQ concerns, and may the people affected by Katrina and other disasters succeed in rebuilding their lives.

Wayne Martin is vice president of AllerAir Industries Inc., based in Montreal, Quebec, Canada. He has 15 years’ experience in the air-purification industry. He can be reached by e-mail at martin@allerair.com or by phone at (888) 852-8247 ext. 21.

Rebecca Rustin, Jeffrey Kanel and Richard Singer, all of AllerAir, contributed to this article.