About 20 employees in the county's
Department of Social Services office in Salinas have been evacuated
since September because of mould found inside the building's walls.
Ross Richards, Monterey County's
facilities manager, said inspectors did a walk-through of the office, in
the Quadrangle Building at 1000 S. Main St., after employees complained
that they felt sick. They found leaks along a wall that leads down to
the basement.
The leaks were caused by a landscaping
planter adjacent to the wall, Richards said.
Tests showed that the air was clean, but
samples from inside the wall showed signs of Stachybotrys chartarum, a
greenish-black mould that grows on material with a high cellulose and low
nitrogen content. The mould grows when moisture from water damage,
excessive humidity, water leaks, condensation, water infiltration or
flooding gathers on the surface.
Stachybotrys chartarum may cause health
symptoms that are nonspecific, but there is no test that proves an
association between it and particular health symptoms, according to the
Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The county moved out employees last
month, soon after the leaks were discovered. Health officials then
tested the area inside the wall as well as air in the office.
"As soon as we found out there was a
problem, we immediately started mitigating the problem to protect our
county employees," Richards said, "even though it's not our building."
The evacuation, on Sept. 11, caused
minimal disruption to the department's operations, although emergency
distribution of food stamps was stopped for a couple of hours, said
Elliott Robinson of the Social Services Department. Only a few employees
worked in the small building which was sealed off.
"In the macro-scale of things, there was
no disruption," he said. "The department was very concerned about the
safety of the staff."
Richards said if the mould had not been
disturbed, the air would have been healthy enough to work in. But as the
department was talking to a consulting firm about the office's safety
conditions, they learned that the building's landlord, Triad Property
Management, had torn down the mould-laden wall.
The disturbance forced the county to
seal off the office occupied by Social Services to prevent further
contamination. Health officials are also conducting more tests.
The management company did not return a
phone call Monday requesting comment.
The Social Services Department will
continue to work in other offices within the Quadrangle. There are no
plans to re-open the old offices, Robinson said.
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