Contact:
Caryn Shinske (609) 984-1795
Lawrence Hajna (609) 984-1795

(22/P002) TRENTON – As New Jersey settles into winter, residents are reminded that basic safety practices can reduce the impacts of burning wood on air quality in their homes and neighborhoods, Department of Environmental Protection Commissioner Shawn M. LaTourette announced today.

Burning wood in fireplaces, wood stoves, or outdoor wood boilers can help reduce energy costs but also emit small particles and other air pollutants. Common-sense steps, however, can significantly reduce these effects while also safeguarding  public health.

Short-term exposure to wood smoke can aggravate lung or heart conditions for some people. Children, teenagers, older adults and people with lung diseases such as asthma and Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease, or heart conditions are most susceptible to the effects of wood smoke.

“We encourage the public to follow common sense steps for building fires that provide warmth but limit exposure to air pollutants that can impact others,” said Frank Steitz, Director of the DEP’s Division of Air Quality. “Following these guidelines will go a long way to addressing both health and safety at the same time.”

Residents planning to burn wood as their major way to heat their home this winter may consider upgrading to a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency-certified wood stove or fireplace insert. The newer equipment will reduce air pollution and is much more energy efficient.

The DEP recommends these guidelines for burning wood at home:

•  Allow wood to season before burning it by allowing the wood to sit outdoors for at least six months. Seasoning allows moisture to evaporate from the wood, making it burn more efficiently. Seasoned wood is darker, has cracks in the end grain and sounds hollow when smacked against another piece of wood.
• Use a wood moisture meter to test the moisture content of wood, which burns most efficiently when its moisture content is below 20 percent.
• Stack wood neatly off the ground and cover it to protect the wood from rain and snow. Store wood that is to be used in the house a safe distance from fireplaces or stoves.
• Start fires with newspaper, dry kindling, or all-natural fire starters, or install a natural gas or propane log lighter in an open fireplace. Never start a fire with gasoline, kerosene or charcoal starter.
• Build hot fires. A smoldering fire is neither safe nor efficient for most appliances.
• Remove ashes regularly to ensure proper airflow. Ashes should be placed into a covered, metal container, stored outdoors on a nonflammable surface.
• Never use a stove or fireplace to burn garbage, cardboard, plastics, wrapping materials, painted materials or pressure-treated wood.
• Do not burn ocean driftwood, plywood, particle board, any wood with glue on or in it, or wood that is wet, rotted, diseased or moldy.
• Use locally cut firewood to decrease the risk of transporting invasive forest pests to your property. For more details, visit www.dontmovefirewood.org.
• Choose manufactured logs made from 100 percent compressed sawdust. Check your wood stove or fireplace insert operating instructions before using artificial logs as many wax and sawdust logs are made for open hearth fireplaces only.
• Keep anything flammable – including drapes, furniture, newspapers and books – far away from any wood-burning appliance.
• Keep an accessible and recently inspected fire extinguisher nearby.
• Have chimneys cleaned annually by a certified chimney sweep. Nearly 7 percent of home fires are caused by the buildup of creosote in the chimney. These fires can spread extremely rapidly and are often signaled by flames leaping from the chimney or a low rumbling sound reminiscent of a freight train or airplane.
• Keep the doors of a wood-burning appliance closed unless loading or stoking the live fire. Harmful chemicals such as carbon monoxide can be released into your home.
• Consider using an indoor air HEPA filter in the same room as a stove or fireplace. These filters can reduce indoor particle pollution by as much as 60 percent.
• Check the local air quality forecast at www.airnow.gov/ before lighting a fire. If the air quality is unhealthy, please consider other heating methods.

Residents should be aware that state regulations and some municipal ordinances prohibit the emission of visible smoke from outdoor wood boilers.

Wood boilers heat a fluid that is circulated in homes and buildings for heating purposes. Under state regulations, these boilers may only emit visible smoke for three minutes every 30 minutes.

For more information on safe wood burning visit www.nj.gov/dep/baqp/woodburning.html or www.epa.gov/burnwise/.

To learn more about the Division of Air Quality, visit www.nj.gov/dep/daq/

Follow Commissioner LaTourette on Twitter and Instagram @shawnlatur. Follow the DEP on Twitter @NewJerseyDEP, Facebook @newjerseydep, Instagram @nj.dep, and LinkedIn @newjerseydep.                                                                     
                                                                        ##

PHOTOS/Top: DEP. Bottom: EPA Burn Wise website

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ZACH-VAC Air Duct Cleaning is the name to trust for those looking to create a clean environment for employees.

This press release was orginally distributed by ReleaseWire

Elizabethtown, PA — (ReleaseWire) — 01/24/2022 — People spend over 90% of their time inside; thus, indoor air quality matters a lot. The ambiance and atmosphere play a vital role in keeping people in good health. The same holds for commercial units. The commercial space must have good indoor air quality to work in peace and get their job done. This is where commercial air duct cleaning comes into the scene.

ZACH-VAC Air Duct Cleaning understands the value of keeping commercial air ducts clean. From mold mediation to dust inspections and more, they perform comprehensive commercial air duct cleaning, removing mold, mildew, dust, bacteria, allergens, and other debris from the source.

Indoor air is usually contaminated more than outside air, implying that their business building’s tenants may be breathing dust, filth, mildew, pollen, smoke, fungus, and other contaminants daily. These particles may be removed by commercial air duct cleaning in Lebanon and Reading, Pennsylvania, resulting in cleaner air in their building.

Clean air boosts the productivity of the individuals in the commercial facility. Whether it’s an office, a school, a hospital, a factory, or anything else, air duct cleaning is instrumental in keeping the space clean and neat. When the atmosphere is clean and easy to breathe, employees can focus and work harder.

The expert professionals can tackle any task, no matter how big or little, using industrial-strength duct cleaning instruments – from large commercial jobs to domestic air duct cleaning. They provide economical and comprehensive air duct cleaning that improves the air quality of the commercial facility, leaving the clients and staff delighted.

When the air ducts are unclean, bacteria may spread and cause illness. As a commercial business owner, one might want all of their employees to be healthy and productive, and duct cleaning may help cut down on sick leaves.

For more information on dryer vent cleaning in Lancaster and Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania, visit https://www.zachvac.com/dryer-vent-cleaning/.

Call (717) 333-2222 for more details.

About Zach-Vac Air Duct Cleaning
Zach-Vac Air Duct Cleaning helps their clients to improve their indoor air quality. This company primarily caters to businesses across Elizabethtown, Lancaster, Harrisburg, York, Reading, and nearby areas.

For more information on this press release visit: http://www.releasewire.com/press-releases/zach-vac-air-duct-cleaning-specializes-in-commercial-air-duct-cleaning-in-lebanon-and-reading-pennsylvania-1351749.htm

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UK: Mitsubishi Electric has added a vertical branch controller to offer greater design flexibility of design for its City Multi Hybrid VRF air conditioning system.

First introduced in 2013, the Hybrid VRF combines VRF and chiller technologies. It uses R32 refrigerant between the outdoor condensing unit and an indoor Hybrid Branch Controller (HBC). From here, the intelligent system uses water between the HBC and the individual indoor air conditioning units, yet still offers two-pipe heat recovery.

The Vertical HBC is available as a 6-port main unit, with new compact 8 or 16-port sub HBC options. These make the system a much more viable solution for a wider range of applications. Valves, pumps and the heat exchanger are all contained within the Vertical HBC allowing for phased, modular installation, making the Vertical HBC ideal for Cat A to Cat B applications and easing maintenance regimes.

An overall system can be expanded using additional horizontal sub-HBC’s allowing up to 50 indoor units to be supplied by one outdoor condenser. The Vertical HBC includes intuitive load adjusting flow control valves and inverter driven pumps.

Designed with complete flexibility in mind, the key components of the Vertical HBC’s are accessible from the front and at floor level during commissioning. The installation of additional water-side ancillaries such as expansion vessel, water filling loop and isolation valves are also much simpler as they are all located on the ground floor.

In addition, water piping can be commissioned before the outdoor condensing unit is even installed.

With the noise sensitive components (for example; refrigerant parts, pumps, plate heat exchanger) all tucked into the vertical box, the new compact horizontal sub-HBC can be placed into any occupied space, without the need of any extra attenuation or service space requirements.  The flexibility of installation also means the units can be moved and adapted if an office space is reconfigured during its lifetime.

Mitsubishi Electric

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A study on indoor air quality and housing characteristics in isolated First Nations communities found elevated rates of respiratory infections and wheezing in young children, which authors associate with poor conditions within their homes.

Researchers analyzed factors that could affect respiratory health in four First Nations communities in the Sioux Lookout region of northern Ontario, finding high levels of mould on interior surfaces and high levels of endotoxin, a residue of certain bacteria associated with wheeze.

Indoor air quality, dust mite concentration and contaminants from wood smoke were also analyzed.

The study, which included homes where 98 First Nations children aged three years or younger lived, found that 85 per cent of the houses lacked controlled ventilation, more than half had damaged windows, 44 per cent showed water penetration in exterior walls and six per cent had immediate safety issues.

Pediatric respirologist Dr. Thomas Kovesi, the lead researcher on the project, said housing inadequacies were linked to high rates of respiratory illness in children — 21 per cent of kids in the study had been admitted to hospital during the first two years of life and one-quarter needed to be medically evacuated because of a respiratory illness.

“People talk a lot about inadequacies in First Nations’ housing, but very few studies have quantified it,” said Kovesi, a physician at Ottawa’s pediatric hospital, CHEO. “We now have high-quality data showing what kinds of problems these houses have.

“And our other key finding is that issues with air quality was associated with lung problems in the kids.”

Wheezing with colds, a symptom indicative of asthma, was seen in nearly 40 per cent of children, although only four per cent were diagnosed with the condition.

Rates of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) were also high in the Sioux Lookout region, which had roughly 44 RSV hospitalizations for every 1,000 babies born per year, compared to a rate of 10 in 1,000 in Toronto. Kovesi said rates of RSV hospitalizations in some areas of Nunavut have been as high as 300 in 1,000.

Kovesi said the study, most of which was done before the COVID-19 pandemic, took about five years of planning. Data was collected between 2019 and 2020.

Houses analyzed in the study were one-third smaller than the average small house in Canada, Kovesi said, but they had an average occupancy of 6.6 people per house, compared to the Canadian average of 2.5.

Overcrowding and reduced ventilation have been partly blamed for COVID-19 outbreaks, which have disproportionately spread through First Nations communities throughout the pandemic.

The Bearskin Lake First Nation in northern Ontario declared a state of emergency this month when an outbreak infected more than half its residents.

“I do think the connections (between poor housing conditions and COVID-19 outbreaks) are very clear and very direct,” Kovesi said. “These are really overcrowded houses to begin with. And if somebody gets COVID, there’s no other place they can go to quarantine.”

The authors urge action to improve housing and infrastructure in First Nations communities to benefit overall health.

“Without adequate ventilation, these houses are like living in a plastic bag,” study co-author Michael McKay, director of Housing and Infrastructure, Nishnawbe Aski Nation, said in a release.

The study was conducted in partnership with the Sioux Lookout Meno Ya Win Health Centre, Sioux Lookout First Nations Health Authority and the Nishnawbe Aski Nation.

Kovesi, who has done previous work on indoor air quality and lung problems in Nunavut children, said his team is extending its research to other Indigenous communities across Canada as part of a study called FEHNCY (Food, Environment, Health and Nutrition of First Nations Children and Youth).

“We know incredibly little about air quality in First Nations houses on reserve in Canada,” Kovesi said. “But we have to start getting that data.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 24, 2022.

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Tether’s IoT devices and software, powered by the Thinxtra 0G Network, enable indoor air quality monitoring for improved living conditions across hundreds of buildings.

CORT Community Housing is creating healthier and safer homes with indoor air quality (IAQ) monitoring technology from New Zealand company Tether, powered by Thinxtra’s Internet of Things (IoT) 0G network.

CORT (Community of Refuge Trust) is a community and affordable housing provider that operates more than 400 medium density properties, home to more than 550 people, in Auckland, with over 100 more dwellings under development.

According to Stephen Hart, Operations Manager at CORT, the non-government, not-for-profit (NFP) organization saw an opportunity to leverage affordable and sustainable technology solutions and the data these offer to better understand the living conditions in its dwellings.

CORT selected Tether’s EnviroQ solution, comprising battery-powered devices and powerful analytics software, allowing it to improve IAQ and ventilation by monitoring temperature, humidity, carbon dioxide (CO2) levels, light and noise, among other factors. The data from the smart IoT devices is communicated across Thinxtra’s 0G Network, which uses Sigfox’s low power Wide Area Network (LPWAN) technology.

“Community and affordable housing must be treated with the same on-going care, maintenance and investment as other residential and commercial developments, not forgotten after construction,” said Stephen Hart, Operations Manager at CORT. “The NZ Building Code outlines regulatory requirements to maintain safe, healthy and durable dwellings, but the framework alone doesn’t ensure these conditions are actually met in the real world.”

“With Tether and Thinxtra’s combined IoT technologies, we are increasing the depth of our knowledge of the living conditions in each home, far beyond that which we could glean from only observing and speaking with tenants. That information is also passed back to the occupants of our buildings, fostering a partnership where we have a chance to proactively discuss improvements should there be a need.”

CORT has commenced installing two sensors inside individual properties, with a third on the outside to allow for comparisons. Information from the devices is provided to CORT’s team through Tether’s mobile and web applications, containing dashboards that offer a real-time view into living conditions.

Sensors are connected to and communicate data over Thinxtra’s national 0G network, eliminating the need for CORT to build a dedicated network or invest in maintenance. As the sensors are battery-powered, they do not draw power from homes, and only need to be replaced once every five years.

“The property sector is a case of contrasts, whereby so much money is spent on developing apartments and houses, and so little is invested to understand the potential impacts of living in them,” said Sam Blackmore, Chief Operating Officer at Tether. “CORT is taking a leading position by not only providing high quality dwellings, but also equipping them with leveraging low power, low cost IoT devices to establish a knowledge base that keeps residents healthier and more comfortable all year-round.”

The Thinxtra-powered EnviroQ solution will also help CORT manage unforeseen challenges resulting from climate change. With granular data on internal and external environments, the NFP can ensure conditions in Auckland’s typically well-insulated homes, designed to cater for winters without using excessive energy, are performing equally throughout consistently hotter summer months.

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Originally Appeared Here

A study on indoor air quality and housing characteristics in isolated First Nations communities found elevated rates of respiratory infections and wheezing in young children, which authors associate with poor conditions within their homes.

Researchers analyzed factors that could affect respiratory health in four First Nations communities in the Sioux Lookout region of northern Ontario, finding high levels of mould on interior surfaces and high levels of endotoxin, a residue of certain bacteria associated with wheeze.

Indoor air quality, dust mite concentration and contaminants from wood smoke were also analyzed.

The study, which included homes where 98 First Nations children aged three years or younger lived, found that 85 per cent of the houses lacked controlled ventilation, more than half had damaged windows, 44 per cent showed water penetration in exterior walls and six per cent had immediate safety issues.

Pediatric respirologist Dr. Thomas Kovesi, the lead researcher on the project, said housing inadequacies were linked to high rates of respiratory illness in children — 21 per cent of kids in the study had been admitted to hospital during the first two years of life and one-quarter needed to be medically evacuated because of a respiratory illness.

“People talk a lot about inadequacies in First Nations’ housing, but very few studies have quantified it,” said Kovesi, a physician at Ottawa’s pediatric hospital, CHEO. “We now have high-quality data showing what kinds of problems these houses have.

“And our other key finding is that issues with air quality was associated with lung problems in the kids.”

Wheezing with colds, a symptom indicative of asthma, was seen in nearly 40 per cent of children, although only four per cent were diagnosed with the condition.

Rates of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) were also high in the Sioux Lookout region, which had roughly 44 RSV hospitalizations for every 1,000 babies born per year, compared to a rate of 10 in 1,000 in Toronto. Kovesi said rates of RSV hospitalizations in some areas of Nunavut have been as high as 300 in 1,000.

Kovesi said the study, most of which was done before the COVID-19 pandemic, took about five years of planning. Data was collected between 2019 and 2020.

Houses analyzed in the study were one-third smaller than the average small house in Canada, Kovesi said, but they had an average occupancy of 6.6 people per house, compared to the Canadian average of 2.5.

Overcrowding and reduced ventilation have been partly blamed for COVID-19 outbreaks, which have disproportionately spread through First Nations communities throughout the pandemic.

The Bearskin Lake First Nation in northern Ontario declared a state of emergency this month when an outbreak infected more than half its residents.

“I do think the connections (between poor housing conditions and COVID-19 outbreaks) are very clear and very direct,” Kovesi said. “These are really overcrowded houses to begin with. And if somebody gets COVID, there’s no other place they can go to quarantine.”

The authors urge action to improve housing and infrastructure in First Nations communities to benefit overall health.

“Without adequate ventilation, these houses are like living in a plastic bag,” study co-author Michael McKay, director of Housing and Infrastructure, Nishnawbe Aski Nation, said in a release.

The study was conducted in partnership with the Sioux Lookout Meno Ya Win Health Centre, Sioux Lookout First Nations Health Authority and the Nishnawbe Aski Nation.

Kovesi, who has done previous work on indoor air quality and lung problems in Nunavut children, said his team is extending its research to other Indigenous communities across Canada as part of a study called FEHNCY (Food, Environment, Health and Nutrition of First Nations Children and Youth).

“We know incredibly little about air quality in First Nations houses on reserve in Canada,” Kovesi said. “But we have to start getting that data.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 24, 2022.

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Originally Appeared Here

A study on indoor air quality and housing characteristics in isolated First Nations communities found elevated rates of respiratory infections and wheezing in young children, which authors associate with poor conditions within their homes.

A study on indoor air quality and housing characteristics in isolated First Nations communities found elevated rates of respiratory infections and wheezing in young children, which authors associate with poor conditions within their homes. 

Researchers analyzed factors that could affect respiratory health in four First Nations communities in the Sioux Lookout region of northern Ontario, finding high levels of mould on interior surfaces and high levels of endotoxin, a residue of certain bacteria associated with wheeze.

Indoor air quality, dust mite concentration and contaminants from wood smoke were also analyzed.

The study, which included homes where 98 First Nations children aged three years or younger lived, found that 85 per cent of the houses lacked controlled ventilation, more than half had damaged windows, 44 per cent showed water penetration in exterior walls and six per cent had immediate safety issues.

Pediatric respirologist Dr. Thomas Kovesi, the lead researcher on the project, said housing inadequacies were linked to high rates of respiratory illness in children — 21 per cent of kids in the study had been admitted to hospital during the first two years of life and one-quarter needed to be medically evacuated because of a respiratory illness. 

“People talk a lot about inadequacies in First Nations’ housing, but very few studies have quantified it,” said Kovesi, a physician at Ottawa’s pediatric hospital, CHEO. “We now have high-quality data showing what kinds of problems these houses have. 

“And our other key finding is that issues with air quality was associated with lung problems in the kids.”

Wheezing with colds, a symptom indicative of asthma, was seen in nearly 40 per cent of children, although only four per cent were diagnosed with the condition.

Rates of respiratory syncytial virus (RSV) were also high in the Sioux Lookout region, which had roughly 44 RSV hospitalizations for every 1,000 babies born per year, compared to a rate of 10 in 1,000 in Toronto. Kovesi said rates of RSV hospitalizations in some areas of Nunavut have been as high as 300 in 1,000.

Kovesi said the study, most of which was done before the COVID-19 pandemic, took about five years of planning. Data was collected between 2019 and 2020.

Houses analyzed in the study were one-third smaller than the average small house in Canada, Kovesi said, but they had an average occupancy of 6.6 people per house, compared to the Canadian average of 2.5.

Overcrowding and reduced ventilation have been partly blamed for COVID-19 outbreaks, which have disproportionately spread through First Nations communities throughout the pandemic.

The Bearskin Lake First Nation in northern Ontario declared a state of emergency this month when an outbreak infected more than half its residents.

“I do think the connections (between poor housing conditions and COVID-19 outbreaks) are very clear and very direct,” Kovesi said. “These are really overcrowded houses to begin with. And if somebody gets COVID, there’s no other place they can go to quarantine.” 

The authors urge action to improve housing and infrastructure in First Nations communities to benefit overall health.

“Without adequate ventilation, these houses are like living in a plastic bag,” study co-author Michael McKay, director of Housing and Infrastructure, Nishnawbe Aski Nation, said in a release.

The study was conducted in partnership with the Sioux Lookout Meno Ya Win Health Centre, Sioux Lookout First Nations Health Authority and the Nishnawbe Aski Nation.

Kovesi, who has done previous work on indoor air quality and lung problems in Nunavut children, said his team is extending its research to other Indigenous communities across Canada as part of a study called FEHNCY (Food, Environment, Health and Nutrition of First Nations Children and Youth).

“We know incredibly little about air quality in First Nations houses on reserve in Canada,” Kovesi said. “But we have to start getting that data.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Jan. 24, 2022.

Melissa Couto Zuber, The Canadian Press

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Originally Appeared Here

Battery storage units at Southern California Edison’s Mira Loma substation.

Last month, Southern California Edison, the electric utility subsidiary of
Rosemead-based Edison International, announced two major moves to reduce reliance on greenhouse gases (GHG).
 
On Dec. 20, Southern California Edison announced that it plans to install 250,000 electric heat pumps in buildings throughout its service area as part of a $677 million plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from buildings and improve indoor air quality.
 
The plan includes incentives for the installation of electric heat pumps in existing homes and buildings because gas furnaces are one of the largest sources of greenhouse gas emissions from buildings. It also provides retrofit assessments and incentives for necessary electrical infrastructure like panel and circuit upgrades.

“Building electrification represents a vital opportunity to reduce GHG emissions and is the area of the California economy where the least amount of progress has been made,” Steven Powell, Southern California Edison’s chief executive, said in the announcement. “This program will accelerate the widespread adoption of electric heat pumps as a first step toward removing the use of fossil fuels in homes and other buildings.”

Before SCE can proceed with the program, it must get approval from the state Public Utilities Commission; a hearing is slated for later this year.
Meanwhile, on Dec. 16, the PUC authorized Southern California Edison to enter into a $1.23 billion, engineering, procurement, construction and maintenance energy storage contract with Framingham, Mass.-based Ameresco Inc. for three battery storage projects that together will be capable of storing 537.5 megawatts of electricity.
 
All three projects are scheduled to come online by this summer, in time for peak demand.
“Our decision … rolls out key storage resources for local reliability during net peak and complements the portfolio of strategies adopted by the CPUC this winter in preparation for summer 2022,” PUC Commissioner Genevieve Shiroma said in the agency’s announcement of its decision.

The battery storage projects will be located adjacent to three existing Edison substations. The largest of the projects, with a capacity of 225 megawatts, is slated for the Springvale Substation in Strathmore. Although outside of Southern California Edison’s service territory, this substation is part of Edison’s transmission grid from its Big Creek hydroelectric project in the Sierra Nevada.

The other two sites are at Edison’s Hinson substation in Long Beach (with capacity of 200 megawatts) and Etiwanda substation in Rancho Cucamonga (112.5 megawatts).

For reprint and licensing requests for this article, CLICK HERE.

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This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with The Seattle Times. Sign up for Dispatches to get stories like this one as soon as they are published.

MONROE, Wash. — For Michelle Leahy, it started with headaches, inflamed rashes on her arms and legs, and blisters in her mouth.

Some students and staff at Sky Valley Education Center, an alternative public school in Monroe, also had strange symptoms: cognitive problems, skin cysts, girls as young as 6 suddenly hitting puberty.

Leahy, like others, eventually became too sick to return to campus. She developed uterine cancer as her other symptoms escalated.

“Who would ever think that the job that you love was making you sick?” Leahy, 62, said.

Michelle Leahy

Credit:
Rajah Bose/Special to The Seattle Times

She didn’t know it then, about seven years ago, but her classroom contained some of the highest levels of toxic chemicals found at Sky Valley. Inspections and environmental testing across campus found an amalgam of harmful environmental conditions, including very high levels of carbon dioxide, poor air ventilation and polychlorinated biphenyls, or PCBs, a banned, synthetic chemical that the Environmental Protection Agency has linked to some cancers and other illnesses.

School administrators, however, knew.

Health inspectors flagged problems on campus as early as 2014, a year before Leahy’s health began to fail. But even as parents complained, again and again, about suspected environmental hazards there, school officials offered reassurances that cleanup efforts at Sky Valley were successful.

Records obtained by The Seattle Times in a public disclosure request show that Monroe School District officials responded slowly, at times asserting, even in official reports to the EPA, they had cleared the campus of toxic material, though in fact it still lingered in buildings.

To this day, federal officials still are pressing Monroe schools to clear the campus of PCB-laden material and address other environmental hazards. And to this day, Sky Valley remains open.

Ultimately more than 200 teachers, parents and students would claim that exposure at Sky Valley made them severely sick with illnesses that have been linked to PCB exposure. The saga at Sky Valley unfolded in a remarkable lawsuit against the manufacturers of PCBs, producing some of the largest-ever jury awards for individuals exposed to the chemical.

The litigation revealed a startling gap in Washington state law — readily acknowledged by government officials in court documents — that allows environmental hazards to fester in schools and may have implications for older schools across the state.

State law requires health districts to inspect schools for environmental hazards and propose actions — but they are not required to enforce their findings. Although school districts are broadly required to maintain a healthy environment, they don’t have to act on all health recommendations.

And if inspections find certain toxic chemicals, including PCBs, state law doesn’t require administrators to notify parents, students or staff of the results.

As a result of those gaps, the Monroe School District and the health agency for the county, the Snohomish Health District, haven’t faced any penalties from regulators relating to Sky Valley.

It’s unclear if Sky Valley is an outlier or a bellwether among the roughly 9,000 school buildings in Washington because the state has not done a comprehensive survey of the environmental health of schools.

But seven years ago, state environment officials said they were “especially concerned” about schools’ potential to expose people to PCBs, which were banned by the EPA in 1979 but still remain in some structures built before then.

State Rep. Gerry Pollet, D-Seattle, said Washington’s state law is exceptionally weak when it comes to environmental health in schools, which he learned last year when he helped pass a law requiring testing for lead in school drinking water.

School districts have resisted mandatory testing and cleanup laws because they do not want to be held financially responsible for expensive remediation when it is demanded, Pollet said.

“If you have a contaminated gas station, we clean it up for the health of the community,” he said. “But if you have the same contamination inside the school building, we act like it’s exempt from our standards of toxic exposure and cleanup. And that is a really sad and serious failing of state policy.”

The Monroe School District did not respond to questions about conditions at Sky Valley and declined to make officials available for interviews, including its superintendent. School board members did not respond to requests for comment. Instead, the district directed The Seattle Times to a lawyer and a 456-page consultant’s report that defends the district’s handling of Sky Valley.

The report defends the district’s communication with parents and teachers about the unfolding problem and says officials addressed PCBs appropriately. It notes that, although Washington mandates that schools maintain safe conditions, “none of these requirements are specific to PCBs in building materials.”

Leahy eventually transferred out of Sky Valley to another school, as did several other teachers, before retiring to Spokane, where she now lives.

Leahy looks back at an old yearbook from Sky Valley Education Center. After falling ill, she eventually left the school, as did several other teachers.

Credit:
Rajah Bose/Special to The Seattle Times

One memory is particularly haunting for her: setting up an inflatable planetarium once a week to teach immersive astronomy lessons to some of the brightest STEM students, about 20 at a time.

But with little air circulation inside the chamber, Leahy now believes her immersive lessons unwittingly intensified children’s exposure to harmful chemicals in the air and carpet. Many of her students became ill around this time.

“I had no idea,” she said, dissolving into tears. “I was poisoning my students.”

“And It Is Safe”

Monroe, a small city nestled near the Cascade foothills northeast of Seattle, is home to one of the largest public parental co-op programs in the state: Sky Valley Education Center. Launched in 1998, it offers K-12 students individual learning plans that include hands-on environmental science courses and self-directed Montessori instruction.

The popular, 700-student program once occupied a vacant warehouse. In 2011, it moved to an aging campus when the district consolidated middle schools, giving the program bigger classrooms, a gymnasium and outdoor space.

The toxicants that would creep into classrooms and hallways predated Sky Valley’s move. The lights and caulking were infused with PCBs, an effective preservative popular in school construction before research revealed its toxicity in the 1970s.

Within three years of moving, decades-old fluorescent lights at Sky Valley started to fail, district records show. The fixtures smoked, caught fire and dripped sticky yellow oil.

Sky Valley Education Center had been holding classes in a former warehouse, where these yearbook photos were shot, before moving to the building that exposed students, teachers and parents to toxic chemicals.

Credit:
Rajah Bose/Special to The Seattle Times

Teachers began raising concerns. One teacher pieced together staff and student symptoms and raised suspicions about PCBs. In April 2014, Sky Valley Principal Karen Rosencrans emailed staff the first of many reassurances that the district had the problem under control.

“Our building is quirky and old and sometimes a challenge. But it is ours. And it is safe,” Rosencrans wrote, assuring parents that the district would remove and replace faulty lights. Rosencrans directed questions to the school district, which declined to comment on the contamination.

Two weeks later, a school district consultant carried out the first of at least half a dozen inspections conducted over the next seven years. It found elevated concentrations of PCBs in a science prep area near classrooms.

While the EPA does not set standards for indoor PCB concentrations, it offers “recommended” thresholds in schools that increase by age, aimed at reducing potential for harm. “They should not be interpreted nor applied as ‘bright line’ or ‘not-to-exceed’ criteria, but may be used to guide thoughtful evaluation of indoor air quality in schools,” the agency says of its recommended limits. In Sky Valley, the PCB levels exceeded the threshold for infants and toddlers.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has linked PCB exposure to impaired memory and learning ability, skin conditions, liver problems and other illnesses. Animal studies connect the chemical to thyroid and hormone problems, neurological damage and some cancers, depending on the number, length and dose of the exposures.

It’s difficult to tell exactly what levels of PCB exposures pose immediate harms, but growing research on the toxicity of the chemical has shown stronger ties to illnesses, said Keri Hornbuckle, director of the University of Iowa’s Superfund Research Program, an academic leader in studying airborne PCBs. “It only gets worse year after year.”

Some states enforce limits on indoor PCB concentrations, including Vermont and Massachusetts. Washington does not.

Later that year, the school district’s consultant, Seattle-based EHSI, returned to Sky Valley, this time looking for other hazards. It said complaints of headaches, sinus issues and sneezing among teachers and students were likely due to ventilation problems, which led to a buildup of pollutants. The inspection wasn’t focused on PCBs, but it found high carbon dioxide levels and some mold on campus, and the consultant recommended improving ventilation and removing carpets that can absorb toxic substances.

Over the course of a year, the school district removed 67 light fixtures suspected to contain PCBs, cleaned more than 100 other lights and removed some carpets from classrooms, district reports said. It later estimated it spent at least $1.6 million cleaning up Sky Valley, including money for testing, new lights and custodial services.

Rosencrans and Monroe schools’ operations director, John Mannix, sent a letter to teachers and parents in late 2015 assuring them that all areas were cleaned and treated according to EPA guidelines. Mannix, who now works at Mukilteo schools, did not respond to an interview request.

But that wasn’t the opinion of the Snohomish Health District, which raised red flags just two weeks later.

“Our concern is that PCB ballasts might have been missed when this issue was addressed last year,” wrote Snohomish health inspector Amanda Zych, according to records obtained by the Times. Among her observations: One classroom carpet suspected to have absorbed PCB oil was duct-taped down instead of taken out.

The district removed the duct-taped carpet and commissioned more air samples. This time the PCB concentrations were higher than in earlier tests, district records show.

Parents flooded the Snohomish Health District with dozens of complaints, records show. Kids reported headaches, breathing problems and thyroid and hormonal issues. Parents, students and teachers say they developed cysts and mouth sores; their skin cracked, peeled and changed pigment.

As the health crisis at Sky Valley was playing out, the EPA’s regional office found “several cities in Washington that we think would be a good place to look for PCBs in school lighting ballasts,” including Monroe, an official wrote in an email relating to a planned program to proactively examine schools for PCBs.

It’s likely the chemical is seeping into old campuses across the country without public knowledge, Hornbuckle said. “It’s not whether [PCBs] are there or whether they are toxic. We know they’re there and we know they’re harmful. The question is what do we do to address it.”

But without a requirement to test for PCBs in schools — and no requirement to disclose results if tests are performed — there’s no way to know how many campuses might have harmful PCBs in the air.

“The Smoking Gun”

By 2016, two years into the unfolding crisis at Sky Valley, administrators were giving regular updates to families reassuring them that the campus was safe.

Behind the scenes, emails show apparent dysfunction among school, health and environmental officials about how to tackle the problem. The Snohomish Health District looped in the state health and ecology departments, eventually triggering direct EPA involvement.

That February, an official from the state health department told other agencies that she didn’t think further air sampling at Sky Valley was necessary, records show. She suggested “a thorough wipe down of hard surfaces with warm soapy water and a thorough vacuum.”

A state toxicologist forwarded the email to an EPA official in charge of PCB remediation in the Pacific Northwest, writing, “Have you been looped into this? I’m not sure soapy water is the answer.”

It is not, according to EPA rules, which outline specific solvents needed to clean PCBs. The agency also recommends, but doesn’t require, removing all PCB-containing fixtures.

It’s unclear what it would cost to remove contaminated light fixtures from Washington’s public schools because the state doesn’t know the extent of the problem, a 2015 state Department of Ecology report says. In New York City, officials estimated a decade ago that it would cost about $708 million to clear PCB-laden lights from 772 schools built before 1979.

After the interagency email exchange, the EPA’s regional office stepped in to direct Sky Valley’s cleanup effort. “We’re anxious to understand the state of PCBs in the school,” Michelle Mullin, who oversees the EPA’s regional PCB program, wrote in late February 2016.

The EPA soon inspected the school, finding PCBs in several light fixtures, according to federal environmental records.

On April 21, 2016, the EPA talked with Monroe School District officials about its findings, recommending additional cleanup steps, records show.

Just hours later, as day faded into evening, nearly 100 parents filed into rows of folding chairs that lined the gymnasium at Frank Wagner Elementary School, a newer campus down the street from Sky Valley.

Speaking to the crowd, school officials emphasized that PCB levels weren’t high enough to exceed the EPA’s guidelines, according to The Monroe Monitor. Rosencrans, the Sky Valley principal, noted that some teachers had gotten so sick that they couldn’t return to campus, but others were in good health.

Deep cleaning was underway to address the campus’s environmental problems, school officials told the parents.

But parents — who confronted officials for the next three and a half hours — feared that regulatory standards weren’t enough to keep children safe.

“I just want to assert the fact that there might not be the science behind combining slightly elevated PCB levels, slightly elevated asbestos levels, slightly elevated radon levels, but when you combine all of those, we are the smoking gun,” said Shelby Keyser, whose children experienced some symptoms. “My kids are the smoking gun.”

She turned to other parents and asked them to raise a hand if their children, too, were a “smoking gun” example, The Monroe Monitor reported. The majority of the parents in the room raised their hands.

Still Not Cleaned

Six weeks after the tense town hall, the EPA found that PCB levels rose after cleanup, reaching the highest concentrations yet, according to an agency memo. These levels put anyone up to age 19 at risk, based on recommended thresholds.

Parents grew more desperate. Their complaints were not prompting aggressive action, so they turned to social media, forming a Healthy Sky Valley Advocacy Group on Facebook, with daily or weekly posts encouraging parents to report illnesses and sharing articles about PCB exposure.

A Change.org petition calling for the school district to relocate Sky Valley students was signed by 568 people and listed names of friends and family who had fallen ill at Sky Valley.

Some parents reluctantly pulled their children from the program. Teachers quit or sought reassignments or filed workers’ compensation claims, although the district would not say how many staffers left Sky Valley during this time frame.

“We really tried everything,” one mother told The Seattle Times. She withdrew her children from the school after they experienced severe health complications, including cognitive problems and early puberty. She requested anonymity for her children’s privacy. “We tried to get the school district to listen. We tried to get the health district to listen. We did all of this stuff and still nobody would listen.”

In fall 2017, the EPA delivered a clean bill of health to Sky Valley after district officials certified in writing that all PCB-containing light fixtures had been removed and that a litany of problems had been resolved, completing a multipoint plan the district had penned at the EPA’s request.

But that wasn’t the case.

Contrary to what Monroe School District reported to the EPA — and to parents — federal inspectors in October 2019 found PCBs in “multiple” light fixtures and in an air filter, discovered that classroom carpet that had been previously flagged hadn’t been fully removed, and raised concerns about PCB-laden caulk in the walls, EPA documents show.

They raised the same problems a year later.

“We are very concerned that PCB contaminated fixtures continue to be found, six years into the process of inspecting and taking inventory, cleaning and removing and disposing of light fixtures,” the EPA wrote in November 2020. “The EPA recommends [Sky Valley] address these concerns with more urgency than has yet been demonstrated.”

The EPA can penalize the district and school, the letter reads. That would be a rare step for the agency, and Bill Dunbar, a regional EPA spokesperson, would not comment on whether it plans to fine the district.

Last year, Monroe School officials again committed to addressing lingering problems, submitting a plan to the EPA. That plan still “did not fully meet our expectations,” so the EPA offered guidance, Dunbar said.

Removing PCB-laden light fixtures is a “no-brainer,” said Hornbuckle, the director of Iowa’s Superfund Research Program. While it wouldn’t completely clear the campus of PCBs, it would likely mitigate one of the highest exposure risks.

“Removing those PCB ballasts is something the state should be doing,” she said, adding that replacing outdated fixtures with energy-efficient lights has saved other schools money.

For some Sky Valley families, the consequences of the delayed action were devastating.

“This Stuff Is Everywhere”

In a King County courtroom last summer, Sky Valley teachers described their deteriorating health to a jury. Experts testified about the scientific links between PCBs and brain damage.

Convinced of the connection, a jury awarded three teachers, including Leahy, $185 million for exposure to PCBs at Sky Valley. Four months later, eight parents, teachers and students won a collective $62 million jury award against Monsanto, the chemical manufacturer of PCBs.

The litigation has resulted in one of the largest awards nationwide for individual PCB exposures. The Sky Valley verdicts include punitive damages, which are allowed under state law in Missouri, where Monsanto was headquartered.

In all, more than 200 parents and teachers have sued, claiming brain damage from exposure to PCBs. At least 17 other lawsuits are awaiting trial.

The complaints catalog many illnesses, but the lawsuits focus on linking cognitive problems to PCB exposure. It’s difficult to link illnesses to specific chemical exposures without more scientific research into their effects.

Bayer Pharmaceuticals, which in 2018 acquired chemical giant Monsanto, denied the allegations both in the lawsuit and in a statement. The company plans to appeal the jury verdicts.

Many parents, teachers and students with pending lawsuits declined to speak to The Seattle Times.

Leahy, now retired, said she doesn’t expect to collect her share of the $185 million jury award. “But it was never about the money. It was the only way to get the public to listen.”

The PCB exposure impaired Leahy’s memory and brain function. She couldn’t stand in a Sky Valley classroom without having headaches, dizziness and breathing problems, she said.

Others testified in court that their children developed depression and suicidal tendencies.

Leahy wears a bracelet that a fellow teacher gave her. The letters NA stand for “Not Alone,” a show of support for the legal battle Leahy was in over the chemical exposure at her former school.

Credit:
Rajah Bose/Special to The Seattle Times

Cheryl Tye Pritchett, a mother who joined her children on campus multiple times a week until late 2016, testified in court that she developed a persistent cough, stomachaches and eventually fogginess and memory issues.

“I’m afraid to find out how severely damaged I am,” Tye Pritchett told a jury. Her children also got sick, she said.

Leahy’s attorney, Rick Friedman, whose firm represents all the Sky Valley plaintiffs, said the lawsuits point to a larger problem, which may be unfolding in schools across the state and nation.

“It’s kind of like lead paint in schools from a decade ago,” Friedman said. “How long until we realize that this stuff is everywhere?”

Pollet, the state lawmaker, said after learning about the Sky Valley saga from The Times that he intends to raise PCB concerns with fellow lawmakers this legislative session.

But he expects school districts to argue, as with lead testing, that remediation of PCBs would be financially devastating.

In 2020, Washington became the first state to successfully sue Monsanto over PCBs, in a lawsuit focused on the chemical in waterways. The chemical giant settled for $95 million, nearly $60 million of which went to the state’s general fund, where the Legislature can direct it to remediation of waterways — or other exposure points, including schools.

“Not Enforceable by Law”

The Sky Valley litigation originally took aim at the Monroe School District and Snohomish Health District, accusing the agencies of negligence for the slowly unfolding crisis at Sky Valley.

But King County Superior Court Judge Douglass North dismissed the health district from the lawsuit after the district argued that loosely written state laws do not require enforcement or action when health inspectors find hazards at schools.

Heather Thomas, a spokesperson for the Snohomish Health District, said in an email that “a general duty by a public agency to inspect schools is just that — a duty to the general public only, and it does not result in a specific duty to enforce in this instance.”

Monroe School District also pointed to an absence in state and federal law of any requirement to remove PCB-laden material. It argued in court documents that it complied with EPA guidelines, and PCB light removal can take “5-10 years.” State and federal environmental agencies recommend removing lights before they leak, but these “recommendations are not enforceable by law,” reads the district’s report defending its actions at Sky Valley.

The school district, in declining interview requests, cited a sealed settlement proposal with Sky Valley teachers, parents and students that has not yet been finalized.

The district told the Times in July — after the first jury award — that the school has been cleared of PCB material.

But an EPA spokesperson said the agency is waiting on Monroe School District to submit a cleanup plan before it can make a “formal decision,” which could include another inspection, giving the school an all-clear, or issuing fines.

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Meanwhile, at the state level, environmental officials, who flagged PCBs in schools as a research priority as early as 2015, are just now building a database of potential PCB hot spots after being delayed by a legislative appropriation.

The department only started surveying school districts last summer, beginning in Eastern Washington. The results of the survey should help the state know whether Sky Valley is an outlier or a bellwether.

“How many kids are sitting in classrooms exposed to PCBs and they don’t even know it,” Leahy said. “How could they know? It doesn’t hit you immediately. It’s like a slow death. You just get sicker and sicker and sicker until it’s too late.”

Taylor Blatchford of The Seattle Times contributed reporting.

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A rich, cream-based moisturizer may be the first product you think to grab when it comes to preventing winter dryness, and that makes sense. As the name implies, this product is literally designed to replenish and support the skin’s moisture levels. While moisturizer may be your dry skin MVP, it’s not the only player that can help out with the issue.

Toner can actually be of assistance in this department, too.

Toners can offer a wide variety of services to your skin, and depending on the formula, that can include giving the skin a boost of needed moisture. If you usually struggle with dryness during the winter season, whether that be from cold temps or dry indoor air, your best bet may be choosing a nondrying toner that’s specifically formulated with gentle yet ultra-hydrating ingredients and offers a calming effect.

One example of a product that fits these specifications is the recently launched e.l.f. Cosmetics’s Pure Skin Toner ($9). It’s a part of the brand’s new dermatologist-developed, sensitive-skin-friendly collection. The nonirritating and nondrying Pure Skin Toner ($9) features allantoin and hyaluronic acid to hydrate, aloe and oat milk to calm and soothe, and niacinamide to provide antioxidant benefits to skin. Another benefit, particularly for those with sensitive skin, is that the formulation is also free of fragrance.

So where should a toner fall in your skin-care routine? Generally, toners are meant to be applied after cleansing but before moisturizing — so smack dab in the middle. Your moisturizer can also help seal in the hydration that your hydrating toner provided.

They can also be applied by using your (clean!) hands or a cotton pad. Either way, you’ll want to gently glide the product over the surface of your skin.

After the product has been absorbed into your skin and depending on your skin type, you can then apply your moisturizer. Toners tend to have a very thin, water-like or milky consistency, so this usually doesn’t take so long.

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