Mold becomes growing issue for state

Friday, Feb. 7, 2003 | 11:15 a.m.

If lawmakers need more justification to spend a proposed $764,000 over the next two years to address mold, asbestos and lead problems in state buildings, they might want to explore the case of a former prison official.

Naomi Comeau, a 59-year-old Las Vegas resident, said she suffered permanent lung damage as the result of indoor exposure to mold while serving as administrative officer at the Southern Desert Correctional Center in Indian Springs.

Comeau's case is not isolated, however. The state has paid out $164,487 in workers' compensation to 130 state employees for mold exposure since January 2001. That works out to $1,265 per employee. Only Comeau and one other state employee lost time as a result of mold exposure, Susan Dunt, the state's risk manager, said.

But the state could wind up shelling out more taxpayer money to people who say they were exposed to mold in state buildings. The state is fighting a lawsuit filed by 88 employees of the state Division of Child & Family Services who have complained about mold at the West Charleston Boulevard facilities. And Comeau is preparing to sue the state as well.

Comeau said she was forced to retire in October 2001 and it wasn't until after she was gone that prison officials ripped out contaminated carpet and drywall at the medium-security men's facility to get rid of the mold.

In her first interview since winning her worker's compensation settlement from the state last fall, Comeau said last week that she remains angry about her ordeal because it left her dependent on inhalers and other medication and she now tires too easily.

"We were supposed to do preventative maintenance programs at the prison but it was basically a budget issue," Comeau said. "We never had the money to do proper maintenance."

It was reported last week that Gov. Kenny Guinn is seeking $764,000 over the next biennium to clean up contaminated state buildings. The state has spent more than $225,000 on mold clean-up since April 2001 and last November set aside an additional $250,000 for indoor air quality investigations.

Guinn spokesman Greg Bortolin said the amount in the governor's budget was what the state Public Works Board requested to clean up the mold and other contaminants in state buildings.

"It's safe to say that when you're facing a $700 million revenue shortfall in the next two years that there will be a lot of issues that won't be funded to the optimum level," Bortolin said.

The budget request from Guinn follows an executive order he signed last June directing state agency heads to address indoor air quality issues.

Dunt said state officials came to the realization within the past three years that harmful levels of mold had become a problem in state buildings throughout Nevada.

"It also has become a problem in the way the state budgets for maintenance," Dunt said. "Most agencies prefer to support their programs, not their buildings."

Mold became a problem for the Southern Desert Correctional Center because it sits at the base of the Spring Mountains and is prone to flooding after heavy rains.

Comeau, who had held numerous federal administrative posts when she was hired in November 1995 to oversee Southern Desert's budget, said she began experiencing shortness of breath within a year of taking the prison job.

"I had been in good physical condition but on and off I kept getting what I thought were sinus infections and upper respiratory tract problems," Comeau said. "I couldn't walk from my office to the prison yard without breathing heavily. I was beginning to wheeze badly when I took a deep breath."

Part of the problem, Comeau said, was that the air vent in her office was directly over her head, causing the contaminants to stir overhead whenever the air conditioner or heater was in operation.

"I told my boss I was somewhat tired of being on antibiotics," Comeau said. "I'd clear up a bit but the moment I got off the antibiotics I'd go through the same situation with my breathing. I thought there had to be something wrong with the air.

"I happened to be one of those employees who would go to work whether I was sick or not."

By June 2001, though, Comeau was fed up and wrote to state occupational safety and health officials seeking relief for what she believed was a contaminated administrative building at the prison.

"Our people in Carson City were aware that we had flooding problems but I was not privileged to anything that may have come back as a response," she said.

Her letter prompted the state to ask microbiologist Linda Stetzenbach, director of the Harry Reid Center for Environmental Studies at UNLV, to examine indoor samples from the prison.

"These data demonstrate fungal contaminants that have been associated with adverse health effects present on surfaces of the building," Stetzenbach wrote in a November 2001 report. "Remediation should be conducted in accordance with the guidelines published by the New York City Department of Health and the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists."

Stetzenbach told the Sun that the samples she examined were not analyzed for toxins -- poisonous substances that can cause injury to human cells and organs. But she said many of the fungi she observed on the samples had the potential to produce toxins, which is why she recommended remediation.

"Certainly they were the result of water intrusion problems," Stetzenbach said. "Fungi produce toxins as part of their metabolism. These fungi can be found where there is water intrusion or water damage.

"When we get rains we get sudden flooding. Some buildings have problems because of construction defects or because there isn't enough money for maintenance."

In a September 2001 memo to a state safety manager, Dunt wrote that the prison administrative building had a "significant history of water intrusion events."

"The carpet at this site is very old and in need of replacement, which, according to corrections representatives, will be initiated when our investigation is completed," Dunt wrote. "Further investigation into employee health complaints indicates that symptoms are noted more specifically when a vacuuming occurs, which leads us to believe that the carpet may be a source of possible mold or other contamination."

A follow-up memo from the State Public Works Board to Dunt indicated that there were roof and wall leaks with stains on ceilings, floors and doors. There were also problems with the soil surrounding the building.

By last July, the state had spent $65,240 on new carpet and drywall in an effort to get rid of the mold, Dunt said.

"The HVAC units were cleaned and the area above the ceiling was cleaned," she said. "We also had to remove soil from outside the building."

But Comeau was already long gone.

"We were prepared to offer her an alternate job site and she chose to retire," Dunt said.

Comeau said the state offered to move her to another facility that she said also had mold problems, leaving her no choice but to retire in October 2001.

"I knew that that stuff makes me sick," she said. "That's why I turned them down."

Howard Skolnik, spokesman for the Nevada Corrections Department, declined comment on Comeau's case because she is in the process of preparing a lawsuit against the state.

Skolnik said he knew of no other Southern Desert employee who had complained of health problems related to mold at the prison.

"I do know that they pulled all the carpet and most of the drywall from that building using inmate labor," he said.

But Comeau's attorney, James Edwards of Las Vegas, said he knew of at least five former Southern Desert inmates who have also complained about the mold problems. Edwards' law firm, Beckley Singleton, also is representing the Division of Child & Family Services employees in their lawsuit against the state.

Comeau already won a worker's compensation claim from the state in November after it was determined that she suffered 23 percent permanent health damage from the mold exposure. She said the settlement was for less than $50,000.

Medical diagnoses of Comeau found she has been disabled by occupational asthma and occupational allergic bronchopulmonary aspergillosis. Among the asthma medications she is required to take is Prednisone, which she said has led to hair loss.

Dr. Karin Pacheco, a staff physician at the National Jewish Medical Center in Denver, concluded last April that Comeau's health problems were the result of "six years of work in a mold-contaminated, unmediated building."

Simple acts that most people take for granted, such as taking short walks, vacuuming carpets, pushing shopping carts or bending down to scrub bathtubs, are now hard for Comeau to handle.

"I was going to work until I was 65 but this was not how I was planning to retire," she said. "This is depressing for me because I'm going to be 60 in April and I'm not employable. Any building I go into has to be free of mold. I can't be around cigarette smoke and around this town that's bad.

"I can't tell you the last time I was able to go into a casino, so that limits what you can do here," she said. "When people think of disabilities they expect someone to have a cane. When you look at a person with a lung problem they don't look like they have a problem at all. But this has not been a fun time for me."

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