NEW ROCHELLE, NY — According to the American Cancer Society the exact cause of most cases of cancer is unknown. What is known is that certain changes in human cells can cause cancer to start. What triggers the cells to change and become cancerous is unknown.
“Overall, environmental factors, defined broadly to include tobacco use, diet, obesity, sun exposure, and infectious diseases, as well as chemicals and radiation cause an estimated 75% to 80% of all cancer cases in the United States,” according to the American Cancer Society web site. Certain chemicals have been linked to cancer and being exposed to or working with them can increase a person’s risk of cancer. The workplace can be a source of exposure to some potentially harmful substances, such as asbestos, benzene, or formaldehyde.
Without knowing whether or not there is any connection to the environment or just an odd sort of randomness, it is the case that over the past decade or so, 11 school district employees who worked at Barnard Early Childhood Center were diagnosed with cancer. Five of the 11 have since died of the disease including three kindergarten teachers; 6 of the 11 worked on the ground floor of the building. Talk of the Sound has the names, dates, and assigned room locations for the employees but will not publish the information due to privacy considerations.
If the 11 cases are not random but rather environmental, what might be the cause? There is no knowing for sure.
Improper handling and removal of asbestos has been commonplace throughout the New Rochelle school district for years. Like almost all older school buildings in the United States, there is asbestos in Barnard. The ceiling in the Barnard auditorium is asbestos material. The boiler room, the custodian’s office and other areas of the ground floor have asbestos. Floor tiles in the building have asbestos. There have been complaints that asbestos handling and removal has taken place at Barnard without following required abatement procedures which can lead to carcinogenic asbestos particles becoming airborne. Some of incidents of improper handling of asbestos were similar to issues which occurred at the George M. Davis Jr. Elementary School.
Talk of the Sound exposed numerous asbestos-related violations at the Davis School in 2013 linked to John Gallagher, an Aramark consultant hired to oversee Facilities Management. As a result, the New York State Department of Labor’s Division of Safety and Health Asbestos Control Bureau launched an investigation. The City School District of New Rochelle was issued a notice of violation and fined $6,500. Two District employees were cited for handling asbestos without a license. The District was put on notice that any future involvement in any asbestos project without a valid license and/or certification could result in other violations and a larger penalty.
Two contractors, G.R.W. Plumbing and Edgar Montalvo, were also issued violations. G.R.W. Plumbing was issued notices of violation for being unlicensed to disturb asbestos and a violation notice for uncertified asbestos workers. Edgar Montalvo, the subcontractor that performed asbestos abatement work at the school was unlicensed but presented a forged license to investigators. Montalvo was issued a violation for being unlicensed to disturb asbestos although his workers were licensed.
As recently reported by Talk of the Sound, Aramark has also been responsible for the improper handling, storage and application of banned cleaning products containing chemicals of acute toxicity and failing to provide school district employees with proper training and safety equipment, according to a whistleblower complaint.
The New York State Department of Labor Public Employee Safety and Health Bureau has launched an investigation into the use of banned toxic chemical cleaning products in the City School District of New Rochelle under the direction of Aramark Management Services. Talk of the Sound has learned that the District will be cited for several major violations: failure to train, failure to provide protective equipment and failure to maintain long-term medical records of employees exposed to the chemicals.
The focus of the state investigation is a product called Enverros Sanimaster 4, a general-purpose sanitizer widely used to clean and sanitize school buildings in New Rochelle. The product contains high amounts of ammonium chloride, ammonium compounds, and other chlorides. Enverros Sanimaster 4 is manufactured by Ecolab, a Minnesota-based chemical products company. According to an Ecolab Material Safety Data Sheet provided to district employees by Aramark, the product can damage the liver, the upper respiratory tract, blood, the reproductive system, and the central nervous system. In cases of direct contact or splashing, the product can cause severe eye and skin burns and, if ingested, damage the digestive tract and, if inhaled, the respiratory system. The product is routinely handled and applied in areas in New Rochelle school buildings that do not have adequate ventilation such as bathrooms, locker rooms, classrooms, and storage areas. In addition to Sanimaster 4 sanitizer, 35 of the 43 products provided by Aramark are banned by New York State for use in schools under the Green Cleaning law passed in 2006.
At Barnard, these dangerous chemicals are stored in a room on the Ground Floor next to the Head Custodian’s office known as the “Fan Room”. This large room contains a large, belt-driven fan housed within a steel collar that connects to the duct work running throughout the building and acts as the hub of the ventilation system for the entire school. The apparatus is old and, according to one expert, would likely fail a “smoke test”; smoke in the Fan Room would penetrate into the duct work and then spread throughout the entire building. The system was updated during a project undertaken by Honeywell over the past several years.
For many years, complaints were filed by the building staff with the Aramark consultants responsible for facilities management that the heating system was defective so that whenever the boilers were running the temperature in the Fan Room would exceed 90 degrees Fahrenheit. Barnard employees repeatedly complained that when the room overheated, the smell from the chemicals became overwhelming. Many of the MSDS sheets for the chemical cleaning products indicate they cannot be stored in temperatures above 75 degrees. For years, nothing was done about the Fan Room overheating and filling with the smell of chemicals
A recent inspection of the Fan Room indicated that heat was generated by coils. After the Honeywell project was completed, and the fan put in good working order, the heat from the coils was dissipated by the fan. So, since the Honeywell project was completed the room has not overheated. Talk of the Sound also found that the glass panes to the only window in the room were smashed out to create ventilation and cool the room. The window opens into a six foot deep well that leads out to the back terrace of the school. The broken window is partially covered by a loose piece of plywood.
Employees at Barnard have complained for years about respiratory issues. Some have attributed those issues to mold accumulating near the HVAC vents in classrooms throughout the building but in particular on the ground floor. It may be the that chemicals stored in the Fan Room were getting into the HVAC system.
A recent tour of the building suggested that even with the fan in the Fan Room working correctly, ventialation problems continue to exist in the school. As an employee waxed a floor in a classroom, the strong smell of wax lingered in the hallways several rooms away.
In 2009, Barnard Principal Patricia Lambert complained to then-IT Director Christine Coleman about the computer servers and network equipment located in the school’s main office.
Operating computer equipment for extended periods of time at high temperatures greatly reduces reliability, longevity and can cause unplanned downtime. Computer equipment experts recommend that server room temperatures should range from no lower than 50 degrees and no higher than 82 degrees Fahrenheit; the optimal temperature range is between 68 and 71 degrees Fahrenheit. In a computer room, maintaining ambient relative humidity levels between 45% and 55% is recommended for optimal performance and reliability. When relative humidity levels are too high, water condensation can occur which results in hardware corrosion and early system and component failure. If the relative humidity is too low, computer equipment becomes susceptible to electrostatic discharge which can cause damage to sensitive components.
Coleman’s response to Lambert’s complaint was, improbably, to relocate the school’s computer network systems and servers to the Fan Room. Coleman failed to install gauges to measure air temperature and relative humidity in the Fan Room. No grounded flooring material was installed to prevent electrostatic discharge. The computer equipment was not installed in racks or cabinets with gaps between components to allow airflow through the shelves and between the components. Instead, Coleman had the equipment placed on top of wooden and steel desks; wood and steel retain and conduct heat.
When the servers required work, IT consultants from BOCES were called. They complained about the heat and overwhelming chemical smell in the Server Room/Fan Room. Rather than move the computer equipment out of the Fan Room (and report the overheating and improper storage of chemicals), Coleman simply added a 5 foot high standalone air conditioning unit in the room. The unit was not powerful enough to cool the room so the high heat and strong chemical smell continued unabated as the AC unit circulated the warm, contaminated air as if to help pump more of it into the ductwork. Although the fan was fixed and the heating issues resolved, the AC unit remains in the Fan Room today, located next to thr broken windows.
Of the 6 employees working on the ground floor who were diagnosed with cancer, 4 of whom have since died, one worked in a room next to the Fan Room, three in rooms in the hallway the Fan Room opened into, and two in rooms around the corner from the Fan Room.
Of the 5 employees stricken with cancer who worked above the Ground Floor, on floors one and two, they each worked in rooms in close proximity to the core ventilation system ductwork that runs up the center of the building, directly above the Fan Room.
As noted by the American Cancer Society, there is no way to know for sure what may have caused a particular person working at Barnard school to get cancer or whether any individual case is connected in way to the building. There are, however, at least eleven good reasons to start asking some hard questions about whether these cases are coincidental or not.
