Health & Safety: Mold training breath of fresh air

Mold training breath of fresh air

By SHERRY HALBROOK
If you were challenged to pick the dullest subject imaginable, what would it be?

If you came up with mold, it may sound like a winner, but forget it. People are actually on a waiting list to get into PEF’s Indoor Air Quality Training on mold.

“I loved it,” PEF member Sharon DeSilva, a senior attorney for the state Office of Temporary and Disability Assistance (OTDA) in Albany, said of the training she attended in November.

It was the second time PEF offered the training this year, and every one of the 50 available spots for participants was filled. Half were PEF members representing a wide range of regions, agencies and occupations. The others were state managers, and eight guests from other unions, including five from other states.

“It’s very exciting to have such strong and wide-ranging interest in our training programs,” said PEF Health and Safety Chair Kathy D’Arminio. “We work hard to make them as interesting and useful as possible.”

Funding for the training is provided through the PS&T Contract and a grant from the Labor Department.

“Part of our goal is to raise everyone’s awareness and level of knowledge about the issue of indoor air quality and the potential effect of mold in the environment,” said Jonathan Rosen, PEF’s director of occupational health and safety. “The training covers both responding to problems and preventing them, and it’s tailored to the needs of both the people who maintain the buildings and the members who raise concerns when a problem arises.

“Our approach is: Don’t wait until a disaster happens. Educate people so they can work to prevent it,” Rosen said.

DeSilva, who also has a certificate in environmental law, is the labor chair of the joint health and safety committee at OTDA.

“The training was extremely informative and I truly enjoyed it,” DeSilva said. “This is information everyone should have, because it applies, not only to offices and public buildings, but to our homes as well.”

DeSilva said the most surprising information she received was the lack of statutes, regulations and standards to deal with mold.

“I was very surprised that no governmental agency even monitors the effects of mold. No agency is in charge of this important issue.”

PEF Region 9 members Janette Clark and Eleanor Pitcher from Taconic Developmental Disabilities Services Office (DDSO) came up from Dutchess County for the training. Clark, a social worker, said she got on a waiting list after finding the previous training in February already full when she applied for it.

Clark and Pitcher have been working to get indoor air and mold problems resolved at a Taconic community satellite office in Ulster County.

“Finding a box of face masks waiting as I walked into the office was kind of a tip-off,” Clark said of the satellite which had recently been renovated and expanded. A variety of air-quality problems at the office were bothering some of the employees and one recently spent a couple of weeks in the hospital with pneumonia, she said.

“We discovered how difficult it is to prove something like that is work-related,” Pitcher said. “We now know what must be done as soon as we recognize a problem and we have many new resources to help us. We really brought back information we can use in the future.”

Jeff Greene, a PEF Region 6 member at Mohawk Valley Psychiatric Center in Utica where he is a plant superintendent, said he, too, appreciates the wealth of resources he brought back from the training.

Greene said he feels better prepared to deal with air quality issues now.

“I was very impressed with the knowledge and experience of the instructors,” he said. “They gave us a lot of resources to take back with us on a CD, so we can get answers quickly when we need them.

“They also showed us different instruments and how to test for moisture and mold. We’re fortunate to have a moisture meter here at Mohawk Valley and that’s the first test to make.

“If you control the moisture, you control the mold.