Schools have to learn to control air quality problems

Central Alberta school reopens after air quality concerns over mould

Mold, chemicals and particles may affect
the health of students, teachers and staff.

An elementary school in west-central Alberta has reopened after it was shut down due to air quality concerns.

Lochearn School in Rocky Mountain House was shut down after high levels of airborne mould were initially detected in at least three of the classrooms from tests by Alberta Infrastructure taken on Jan. 31.

Results from a second round of tests on March 7 were released Thursday afternoon and confirmed the recent cleaning and repairs were effective and all air standards meet Health Canada guidelines.

Health Canada guidelines state that acceptable readings of airborne mould can be up to a maximum total of 150 colony forming units per cubic metre of air.

From the Jan. 31 test, some classrooms were showing results of 643 and 468 units, but the test taken last week found no classrooms over 75.

Danielle Spencer, the school's principal, said in a press release that health and safety of students and staff are her Number 1 priority.

The division expected good results after remediation work was conducted at the school on Feb. 20 and 21, said Gordon Majeran, the associate superintendent of corporate services with the Wild Rose School Division.

The recommendations in the first report from Alberta Infrastructure involved the replacing of all water stained ceiling tiles, a disinfection and cleaning of all identified areas with mould and targeted mould remediation -- meaning encapsulation -- on some of the bulkheads overhead at the school entrance, Majeran said.

"We will continue with testing to monitor the air quality and we will also be developing a roof repair plan,'' Majeran said.

Structural problems were pointed out in the school early in the new year when the onset of warmer weather combined with the heavy snow load on the roof began to cause leaks, especially in the north wing.

Concerned about mould, the division followed up with an air quality test, Majeran said.

The first results came back on Feb. 12 but staff were only told the results on Wednesday evening, which sparked the decision to close Lochearn on Thursday.

"They were concerned ... and not comfortable now that they knew the levels ... They didn't want the students there so as a precautionary measure we decided it may be best to close the school until the new results came in,'' Majeran said.

There was "no particular reason'' staff weren't told about the exact levels of mould found in the school, he added.

"They knew there was work being done but they didn't have the results... We didn't share them with them. ... At the time we decided it was better to concentrate on cleaning it up.''

Lochearn School serves students from kindergarten to Grade 5. The building is well over 30 years old, Majeran said, and the roof has been the source of numerous problems over the years.

Source: OHS Canada

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Vermont pondering bill to regulate toxic chemicals

The bill would allow regulated use of
some chemicals that are harmful to health.

Federal regulations for reporting toxic chemicals in consumer products have not changed in decades, but Vermont is poised to join other states to label – and possibly ban – products containing chemicals considered harmful to public health.

Vermont has passed legislation to regulate the use of certain chemicals one at a time, including flame retardants, Bisphenol A (BPA), mercury and lead. But a new proposal would allow the Vermont Department of Health to expand this list every other year without legislative approval.

The bill, S.239, asks the department to create a list of potentially harmful chemicals and require manufacturers to label or remove toxic chemicals from their products – a proposal that has alarmed businesses across the country.

“Ultimately, we think industry should welcome some degree of regulation and transparency to provide the public better products and safer products,” Health Commissioner Harry Chen said in testimony last week before the Senate Economic Development Committee.

But some manufacturers say the list of toxic chemicals could be bad for business in Vermont. Some companies spend millions each year to report chemicals in their products in states with similar existing regulations, industry representatives told lawmakers drafting the bill.

The bill cleared the Senate Health and Welfare Committee (where it was introduced by Sen. Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden) and was then taken up by Senate Economic Development to address business concerns.

“I’m trying to bring the tension level down and let everybody know we’re not on a witch hunt,” committee Chair Sen. Kevin Mullin, R-Rutland, said last week. “We’re just trying to protect people from bad chemicals.”

The committee later revised the bill to exempt electronic products and any chemicals found in ammunition for air rifles, such as lead. The bill was voted out of committee Friday and the full Senate will vote on the bill as soon as Wednesday.

Environmental groups support the bill. It would protect consumers against the harmful effects of toxic chemicals, according to Lauren Hierl, political director for the Vermont Conservation Voters.

Asthma, obesity, infertility and cancers are some of the health effects of chemicals found in products sold in Vermont, she said. “They are just exacerbating these bad health trends,” she said. Hierl said she does not expect Vermont to ban chemicals that do not have a replacement.

Under Vermont’s proposed system, the health department and an advisory committee would compile a list of chemicals considered harmful to health, require manufacturers to disclose to the state these chemicals found in their products and mandate that the chemicals be either labeled or not sold in the state.

Source: VT Digger. The article has been edited for length.

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Xylene detected by employees

Xylene and other airborne chemicals
can be harmful to human health.

Located in the southwest corner of Midland County sits the City of Odessa’s Bob Derrington Water Reclamation Plant; almost invisible to anyone driving south on East Loop 338.

It was here that alert employees discovered the presence of a chemical waste that was dumped into the city’s sewers from a manhole cover, according to an Ector County lawsuit.
Ben Jordan, assistant director of utilities for Odessa, said the discovery occurred Jan. 8 and almost by accident.

With employees doing maintenance at the “top of the plant,” or the area where raw sewage initially comes in, Jordan said the employees noticed a difference in the way the air smelled.

Explaining that after working near sewage for many years, Jordan said the employees can usually detect something different in the water by the way it smells.

“It was sweet, almost like Pine-Sol,” Jordan said. “We just knew it was a different smell.”

Taking a sample, they sent a sample off to be tested and did a second sample on Jan. 30. However, because the sample was not the same quality as the Jan. 8 samples, Jordan said they did not send it in for testing.

“I make sure to do it the same way; that way our tests have integrity,” he said, adding a third sample was sent on Feb. 10.

When the results came back, it showed that there were high levels of xylene in the water.

Xylene, a liquid hydrocarbon obtained by distilling wood, coal tar, or petroleum, and used in fuels and solvents, and in chemical synthesis, is also highly flammable and causes irritation of the skin and birth defects if ingested.

Lab reports done by Ana-Lab Corporation indicate the test in January reported that the water had 17.04 micrograms per liter of xylene in the water.

In a separate test conducted in February, water from the plant again showed elevated levels of xylene, this time at 14.14 micrograms per liter.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s website states that federal law allows no more than 10 microgram per liter of xylene in the city’s sewer system.

But the xylene also did more than that. Jordan said it killed all the microorganisms that are used to treat the sewer water.

As the raw sewage comes in, various types of microorganisms start eating at the sewage, and each other, eventually dropping all the fecal matter out of the water as it goes through the process, Jordan said.

Next, chlorine is poured into the water and then taken out with sulfur dioxide because any runoff from the plant goes into the Monahans Draw, which is about a mile south of the plant, Jordan said.

“The state says you can’t have water with chlorine go back out,” Jordan said.

But once the xylene hit the plant, Jordan said it started to kill off the microorganisms, which started to slow down how fast the plant could process water.

Sitting in the tanks halfway through the process is a large amount of dried sludge, which sits on top of the pools, and forces the running water to go under it. But at the end of the process, Jordan pours out some water which is clear.

Because of state standards, Jordan said the water is tested every day, with the employees walking around the plant during shifts to make sure everything is flowing smoothly.

The xylene that came into the plant was the result of 90 barrels of the waste poured into the sewer system by employees with Roywell Services Inc., a lawsuit filed by Ector County alleges.

When Odessa and Ector County law enforcement officials did their investigation, an unnamed employee with the company said he saw two employees use a pump to drain the contents of a lined pit —identified as a mixture of acid, chemicals and water — from the property and into a manhole, the lawsuit stated.

The mixture that was reportedly dumped into a manhole cover at the property located at 2425 West Interstate 20 was “hot,” and was dissolving caliche rock and dirt.

Additional interviews with employees stated that they dumped about 90 barrels of the waste into the sewer system and lifted the manhole cover with company-owned equipment at the direction of one of their managers, the lawsuit stated.

Source: OA Online. The article has been edited for length.

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Large particle exposure a heart risk: Study

Hearts may be at risk from large airborne particles, not just fine ones

Study links large particles to increased
blood pressure.

Breathing large particles, not just small, seems to affect hearts. People in a rural community experienced changes in their blood pressure and heart rates when they inhaled unfiltered local air that contained large particles, which come mostly from windblown dust and soil.

Large pollution particles can be inhaled from farm, road and construction dust.

Inhaling large dust particles from farms, roads and construction sites may have some of the same effects on people’s hearts as small particulates, according to a new study.

The study, led by the University of Michigan, is the first to link coarse particulates to increased blood pressure, adding to previous evidence that they may increase risks of heart attacks.

Many studies already have linked fine particulate matter – which comes largely from vehicles and industries that burn fossil fuels – to heart risks. Less is known about the impacts of coarse particulates, which often come from stirred-up dust or soil.

The experiments were conducted in airtight chambers, where 32 adults from Dexter, Mich., a rural town about 60 miles west of Detroit, breathed in local air containing coarse particulates.

On another day two weeks later, they breathed local air that had been filtered. The unfiltered air had levels of coarse particles that were seven times higher than the levels in the filtered air.

When the volunteers inhaled the unfiltered air, their average blood pressure (both systolic and diastolic) linearly increased every 10 minutes, and their heart rates were elevated compared with the times they inhaled the filtered air.

The changes were “small in magnitude and thus unlikely to pose direct risks to healthy people,” the researchers wrote in the study published online in the journal Environmental Health Perspectives.

However, they could trigger heart attacks or other cardiovascular events in people with pre-existing heart conditions, they wrote.

“Since millions of susceptible people are likely impacted by coarse PM, even a very small absolute increase in [cardiovascular] risk can translate into substantial global public health concerns,” the authors wrote.

The researchers didn’t evaluate long-term heart function.

Some previous studies have linked coarse particulates to elevated heart rates and increased heart rate variability. However, other health studies have had mixed findings.

The study was limited in its rural setting, which means the pollutants were largely from farming, so coarse particles in cities may have different impacts.

The United States has two health standards for particulates – those that are 10 micrometers in diameter or smaller (PM10) and those that are 2.5 micrometers or smaller (PM2.5). For PM10, cities and counties are not supposed to exceed an annual mean of 50 micrograms per cubic meter of air or a daily limit of 150.

Coarse particle levels have declined 27 percent nationwide since 2002, according to the Environmental Protection Agency.

Source: EHN


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