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Mold Discovered at Santa Fe Main LibraryAdministrators closed the Santa Fe (N.M.) Public Library August 27 after a city-funded report by CERL Environmental Consultants said tests revealed the presence of toxic molds in a utility tunnel beneath the library and in the ventilation system. City Manager Jim Romero said in the August 28 Santa Fe New Mexican that the building will remain closed for up to four months for an environmental cleanup. Library workers had claimed for years the building was making them sick and contributed to dry eyes, sneezing, fatigue, diarrhea, and hallucinations. “I don’t have the health I had when I started working in that building,” library outreach worker Kathy Costa told the New Mexican. She was transferred to another branch two years ago after refusing to return to work at the main downtown facility. The National Institute of Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH), a division of the federal Centers for Disease Control, will perform its own tests on the main branch rather than rely on the CERL report, which called the building “biocompromised.” NIOSH had already been scheduled to inspect the library August 28 at the request of library staff. City spokesman Juan Ríos said the city is trying to figure out what to do with the library’s collection: “Not just about the mold problem but at the logistics and cost of moving the materials in the building,” he said. City officials will reassign the 34 downtown library workers, now on paid leave, to other branches or the Santa Fe public-school libraries. Posted Septemberf 3, 2001. |
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