Mold Infestation Threatens Homes

 Sun, Aug 19 12:02 PM EDT
Associated Press

By BRIAN WITTE,

Associated Press Writer BELCOURT, N.D. (AP) –

Lowella Allard no longer goes into her basement, where mold grips the walls and the damp, thick air is hard to breathe. Mold, she says, festers inside the insulation and is the reason behind her dry cough and frequent headaches. "I go through Tylenol like crazy and I just don't get any better," Allard said during a tour of her home by officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, the Indian Health Service and the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Some 320 federally subsidized homes on the Turtle Mountain Indian Reservation are infested with mold. Residents say the infestation is sickening, and tribal officials say at least seven deaths in recent years could be related to the infestation, which is so pervasive they estimate 210 homes will have to be destroyed. Roughly 4,000 houses occupy the 72,000-acre reservation in north-central North Dakota. About 8,300 people call it home. Most of the infested homes are small - about 600 square feet with two bedrooms. They are built of wood-frame construction, have dirt floors and sit on a concrete block foundation over crawl spaces.

Tribal officials are especially worried about the black mold, which can cause flulike and allergylike symptoms that can include skin rashes, inflammation of the respiratory tract, bloody noses, fever, headaches, neurological problems and suppression of the immune system.

Charlissa Decoteau, whose mold-infested home was one of the five that officials visited in July, said she believes the mold contributed to the death of her 15-month-old daughter in 1998. Kyra Rose died shortly after
running a 105-degree fever. "That much mold has got to do something to a baby," she said. "There's mold everywhere." The tribe believes two dams - Belcourt Dam near the city and Gordon Lake Dam, just off the reservation - may be contributing to excessive moisture, which could be exacerbating the mold. Additionally, a wet cycle in recent years has enabled the mold to thrive in homes. Crawl spaces under some homes are flooded with 2 feet to 3 feet of standing water.

After a brief visit to the stuffy basement as Allard waited in her kitchen, Sen. Kent Conrad of North Dakota said he could understand why she stays upstairs. "This is bad. No wonder the woman is sick," he said as his eyes swept over a mold-covered wall. Later in the tour, he said he, too, felt unwell even though his visits indoors were brief. "I've never had that feeling in my life," he said as he described being overwhelmed by musty air that made him gag.

"There are certainly a number of unexplained deaths, especially of children," Conrad said, "and we know that they had respiratory problems and we know that respiratory problems are caused by this type of black mold." Tribal chairman Richard Monette said seven or eight deaths in recent years are believed to be related to black mold. "We have no idea the scope of this health problem," he said. "The one thing that's clear to me is that it's going to be beyond what everybody is going to want to guess."

In response, tribal officials have sought federal help. Congress approved $5 million in July to address the problem, and Conrad, who describes the infestation as an emergency situation, said he is seeking another $4 million. "Uncle Sam can't be a slum lord," Conrad said. "The federal government's got a legal liability here." But even the additional money, Conrad conceded, likely won't be sufficient to fully address the problem. He estimated about $20 million would be needed. "This is not a circumstance
where you've got a little mold in a corner," Conrad said. "This is a situation where you have mold that's throughout the structure ... in the insulation, in the ceilings. I've never seen anything quite like it." Two recent reports commissioned by the tribe have found large amounts of sickening mold in homes, and the authors recommend moving residents out as soon as possible.

"Let's just say it's as bad a mold situation as I've ever run across, and I've been doing this for almost 15 years," said Ronald Pearson, the principal toxicologist and industrial hygienist for Environmental Health and Safety Inc., a private consulting firm in St. Paul, Minn. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention is in the preliminary stages of testing homes for black mold, spokeswoman Bernadette Burdon said. A preliminary CDC report found that three out of every four homes sampled had mold, said Becky Phelps, director of the Turtle Mountain Housing Authority.

The tribe already has moved about 25 families from severely infested homes to less moldy ones. But some reservation residents have held protests, saying a response to their plight is not happening fast enough. "We've been moving people out based on medical emergencies as we get other units vacated for them to move into, but we're bottoming out in that area," Phelps said. The Army Corps of Engineers has also signed on to help build about 40 new homes, said Tim Grundhoffer, a civil engineer with the corps. Construction is due to begin in September.