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This document is also available as a PDF. Deadly mold delays opening of Senate's day-care center WASHINGTON - Inside the building that was supposed to be filled
by now with the sounds of young children, a potentially deadly mold
is eating through the walls. After a year of tests and much hand-wringing,
parents hope the building can be salvaged as the new day-care center
for children of Senate employees. The stachybotrys mold, discovered during an inspection in March
1998, is especially dangerous to infants - devastating news for the
nonprofit center's board of directors, because the new facility is
to add infants to its young population. Since the discovery, everything has moved in slow motion. The Capitol
architect's office has spent a year testing the mold and trying to
figure out what to do. The nervous parents have hired an environmental
consultant with their own money. The National Institute for Occupational
Safety and Health has been asked for advice. The black mold, still growing in the unfinished building a few
blocks from the Capitol, is another embarrassment for the Architect
of the Capitol - the office that maintains congressional grounds and
buildings. The office has struggled for a year to comply with workplace safety
rules and stumbled in attempts to revive a moribund waste recycling
program. Herb Franklin, spokesman for the architect's office, has moved
cautiously concerning the day-care center but says it is now ready
with a plan to eradicate the mold - a suspect in the deaths of at
least 12 infants in Cleveland in the last six years and 140 illnesses
nationally. Parents, whose children are currently in a smaller building on
Capitol Hill, remain skeptical. "We've had concerns over the length of time it has taken to get
things moving," said Lisa Tuite, who is president of the day-care
center's board of directors, made up of parents. "How long does it
take to come up with a . . . plan? We wish we were higher on the priority
list." The new center, being constructed with taxpayers' money under a
$1.9 million contract, is slated to care for 68 children, compared
with 47 now. The center is mainly for children of Senate employees,
who pay tuition to operate the day-care program; no senators have
children there. The House has a separate child-care facility. It's not clear why the mold, which typically grows on water-soaked
ceilings and walls, appeared in the building. Ms. Tuite, a Senate
employee, blames the architect's office and the contractor. "The contractor didn't do well enough to keep water out of the
building, and the architect's office was not monitoring the problem
while it got as big as it did," she said. Parents were tipped off about the mold through an unofficial phone
call to a board member from someone in the architect's office. Mr. Franklin said officials decided to notify the parents quickly
when the mold was discovered. If there was a delay, he said, "we're 1 of 2 7/25/99 3:14 PM Printable Document-Electric Library Personal Edition http://business.elibrary.com/s/elbe/getd...ydocid=446721@library_l&dtype=0~0&dinst= talking about a half a day or a day." "We had several meetings with the parents' board," he said. "We
decided they would become our partners to make sure a . . . plan was
acceptable to them and to us. We want to make sure that no one has
the slightest hesitancy to occupy the building," which is now due
to open in September, a year behind schedule. Mr. Franklin said the parents' consultant and other safety experts
have agreed that the architect's plans for ridding the building of
the mold appear to be sound. But Dr. Dorr G. Dearborn of Cleveland, a professor of pediatrics
at Case Western Reserve Medical School who has researched stachybotrys,
said the mold is "going to be very difficult to totally eradicate."
"Taking things down to a practically safe level is a reasonable
possibility, but it's difficult to know what that level is," he said.
"We don't know what level of exposure causes the disease." Angel Campbell, a Senate employee and the board member dealing
with the problem, said, "Having our own consultant is our way of assuring
parents of children they don't have anything to worry about in terms
of health and safety risk."
PHOTO(S): (Associated Press) The stachybotrys mold,
which has postponed the opening of this Washington day-care center for Senate employees, is suspected in the deaths of at least 12 infants in Cleveland in the last six years and 140 illnesses across the country. © 1999 The Dallas Morning News All Rights Reserved Associated Press, Deadly mold delays opening of Senate's day-care center. , The Dallas Morning News,
04-11-1999, pp 39A. Copyright © 1998 Infonautics Corporation. All rights reserved. - Terms and Conditions 2 of 2 7/25/99 3:14 PM |
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