Blog

Aug 07, 2023

Courthouse mold issue muddied by conflicting reports

QUINCY — Larry Schwartz disagrees with the characterization of two different messages being delivered from his company to the Adams County Board following mold testing at the county courthouse. "It

QUINCY — Larry Schwartz disagrees with the characterization of two different messages being delivered from his company to the Adams County Board following mold testing at the county courthouse.

"It was definitely consistent," said the CEO of Safestart Environmental during an interview with The Herald-Whig. "I tried to be consistent, but I kept getting derailed in other directions in that first meeting."

Schwarz felt the report Safestart submitted clearly showed there were problem areas for courthouse employees.

"It was implied in the report," he said. "I mean, you'd have to be dumb to look at that and not know what that means. We were never actually asked at that time, you know, should people work in there or not."

In the audio recording from a June 12 meeting Schwartz held with several members of the Adams County Board and the Adams County state's attorney's office, the guidance provided was not as direct.

"We would recommend whoever you work with do things a step at a time and try to deal first with things that may tend to get you the most bang for the buck," Schwartz said at that meeting. "And kind of monitor the results of that, to see if you need to go further or do more."

The Adams County Board, working alongside the Sheriff's Department, began looking into mold in the courthouse after newly elected Sheriff Tony Grootens received a complaint in early December 2022 about mold in some of the spaces of the building, which was built in 1950.

In February, the County Board approved a bid of $56,000 for Safestart to conduct testing for mold throughout the building. The bid was not the lowest, but it was from a company that was recommended by a group of employees and others working in the building who had raised the concerns.

First Assistant State's Attorney Todd Eyler said the county may well have overpaid for the testing service. He said it's not necessarily a fact that just because one company would charge more doesn't mean their methods are better.

Based on the recommendation of Schwartz at that time, a plan to have the heating and ventilation ducts professionally deep-cleaned was put on hold. Schwartz told the County's Transportation, Building, and Technology Committee the cleaning process could cause issues with testing and possible recontamination.

After being awarded the contract at the February County Board meeting, Safestart wasn't able to test the courthouse until May.

Once the testing was complete, Schwartz and other Safestart representatives held a virtual meeting with individuals representing the county, including Dave Bellis, chairman of the Building Committee; State's Attorney Gary Farha, Grootens, and County Board Chair Kent Snider. During the meeting, questions were raised about results showing similar contaminant levels listed as acceptable in one space and unacceptable in others.

Prior to the testing, Safestart sent questionnaires to those working in the building to get an idea of what health issues they were experiencing and where they had the most difficulty inside the building.

"We did not ask for necessarily the work area that they sit in," Schwartz said. "We wanted to know whether they either work in or visit that area. It didn't affect what or how we tested. We decided to do the whole gamut of testing for everything in every one of these work areas."

According to Eyler, there were 113 surveys returned, of which 70% reported some health issues the respondent felt were attributable to the building. He noted though the percentage is high in relation to the number of surveys, it's a small percentage of total people that work in the building on a daily basis.

Once the results were shared publicly, the Building Committee scheduled a virtual town hall meeting for June 28. In keeping with open meeting laws, the county posted an agenda for the town hall, but Safestart's representatives changed their panel after the notification period was closed.

"The day of the meeting, the county was told that there were going to be three doctors involved in this meeting as well," Eyler said. "We had no idea who they were and or what they were going to say."

Because these changes were not able to be posted publicly as required for meetings, the county cancelled the town hall as an official meeting. Safestart proceeded with it.

"In the town hall, I was a little stronger on (the dangerous conditions)," Schwartz said. "I wanted to get medical opinions from physicians I work with in this field, to see if they concur or not our opinions on it."

County Board members had concerns with what they saw as different information being given at the Safestart's town hall meeting compared to what was delivered in the June 12 meeting. In an effort to clarify the messages, Eyler requested the recording of the June 12 meeting from Safestart, a request he would have to make more than once.

"It took me five different times to request that recording," Eyler said. "And what was so problematic about it? Because that recording did not jive, and was not consistent with what they said on June 28. They were simply holding it hostage."

The day after the town hall, a complaint was filed to the Illinois Department of Labor. In part, the complaint said that the "report came out a few weeks ago and the county board swept it under the rug and lied to employees saying it was a draft."

In response to the complaint, Ed Jancauskas, a public safety inspector with the DOL, noted that there is no enforcement option for the department because there is no standard to be met.

"There is no established threshold for levels of mold in standards," Jancauskas's responses said. "(Illinois Occupational Safety and Health Administration) and EPA are unable to enforce the air quality as it pertains to mold."

With the confusion surrounding the results and comments from Safestart, the county sought bids for additional testing, hiring Jurgiel and Associates, Inc. of St. Louis, an industrial hygienist firm, for $3,500 at the July meeting. The results of that testing, presented to the board at the Aug. 15 meeting, showed minimal contamination compared to outdoor control samples.

"One reason for the second round of testing is because when Safestart was asked certain questions regarding their sample sampling process, (...) they did not provide the county with a sufficient answer to explain their control sampling process," Eyler said.

Schwartz said he couldn't give a specific answer to why Jurgiel's results were so different from Safestart's, but he believes Safestart did a more thorough series of tests.

"We did over 100 tests of different types; we did 20 or 30 tests each," he said. "This other company did only one type of testing, and only did about 20 or 25 maybe that relate primarily to the traditional type of health effects."

Schwartz noted he had received information from people at the courthouse related to the second round of tests.

"I've been told by friends that people doing the testing took a lot of these air samples, for example, right up to and on the presence of air filter machines," he said. "That will bias results. It can't even compare because they weren't necessarily the same areas. This is a huge building. So how do we compare their results with ours? They only had like 20 compared to maybe 150 tests we do."

To date, the Adams County Board has approved more than $130,000 in mold reduction efforts. The total spent will ultimately be determined by the level of remediation recommended for the building.

Part of the total expense includes $78,560 approved at the Aug 15 meeting to install new air scrubbers in the air system at the courthouse.

One of the recommendations from the Department of Labor's review of the complaints was the county ensure the air systems are using air filters with a rating of 8 or better. Terry Bower, maintenance supervisor for the county, responded the county has always used air filters with that rating.

Additional remediation plans are being worked up from Jurgiel. Employees who believe they are experiencing health issues related to the building have been told to contact their department supervisors to find what accommodations, if any, can be made, including work-from-home options.

Eyler said to his knowledge, there have been no requests filed under the Americans with Disabilities Act related to the mold issue, a topic that has been raised by some employees at Building Committee meetings.

"They have to have specific letters and information from doctors telling the employer what the problem is and what is needed," he said. "Part of that also is that the doctor has to be willing to say that the type of work that the employee is required to perform cannot be performed because of their condition.

"On top of that, just because a certain accommodation is recommended does not mean that it has to be made. It could be deemed that that is not a reasonable accommodation or not something that the employer is able to accommodate."

Based on the recommendation of Safestart, the county does make masks available to anyone entering the courthouse that feels they need one. Ongoing remediation efforts continue, including rescheduling the duct cleaning work that was cancelled in February based on Safestart's advice ahead of their first testing effort.

Log In

Keep it Clean. Please avoid obscene, vulgar, lewd,racist or sexually-oriented language.PLEASE TURN OFF YOUR CAPS LOCK.Don't Threaten. Threats of harming anotherperson will not be tolerated.Be Truthful. Don't knowingly lie about anyoneor anything.Be Nice. No racism, sexism or any sort of -ismthat is degrading to another person.Be Proactive. Use the 'Report' link oneach comment to let us know of abusive posts.Share with Us. We'd love to hear eyewitnessaccounts, the history behind an article.