Employees on Clemson University's campus are concerned about the air they breathe citing everything from mold to allergens in the campus' buildings, problems that officials say could likely cost as much as $50 million over the next 10 years to fix.

The university received "reports from many faculty in buildings across campus with real concerns," after air quality was mentioned in a Faculty Senate meeting of the university's welfare committee, according to the group's annual report from May.

The faculty concerns do not encompass student housing, which is handled by a separate maintenance team.

Problems documented in recent campus tests have ranged from mold to allergens tracked into buildings by co-workers and mildew in offices kept closed during summer. While these have been isolated and remediated when reported, larger concerns over some of the campus' aging infrastructure remain.

In December 2017, tests found mercury contamination in floors of abandoned rooms in Long Hall, according to a report by Terracon, a company that contracts with Clemson for air quality tests.

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In January and April of 2019, Terracon reports cited elevated mold counts in spaces in Holtzendorf Hall and Godfrey Hall.

In October 2017, an employee in Martin Hall reported "significant respiratory irritation," and increased mold spore counts were detected in her office. The Terracon report suggested working on the heating, ventilation and air condition system to bring humidity levels in check.

Although mold is ubiquitous in the environment and not always problematic, its presence can be concerning for those with asthma and compromised immune systems, said Anindya Chanda, director of the Integrative Mycology Laboratory at the University of South Carolina.

In the past three years, Clemson's facilities division has completed 73 work-order requests for air-quality analysis tests across 36 campus buildings, according to a presentation made to the Board of Trustees. While many tests did not identify problems, others came back with remediation recommendations, some of which trace back to HVAC system issues.

There are 866 HVAC systems on campus, 286 of which are 20-plus years old and 14 of which are more than 50 years old, according to the report to the board.

Clemson will need to invest about $50 million in HVAC upgrades over the next 10 years, according to building assessments conducted by the facilities division. Most of those fixes will be made during large capital projects, which are generally funded from state-issued bonds and a part of students’ mandatory fees.

Southeast environment makes maintaining air quality harder

For the last six months, Joe Ryan, the faculty representative to the Board of Trustees and director of the ClemsonLIFE program, has studied indoor air quality after he heard repeated employee concerns.

While employees can bring a bottle of water to work if they don't like what's in the fountain, air quality is different, Ryan said.

“You can’t bring your own oxygen bottles here," he said.

Todd Barnette, the interim chief facilities officer at Clemson, said maintaining indoor air quality is an ongoing challenge with more than 100 buildings on campus.

"With a campus this size, with buildings as old as they are in a hot and humid Southeast environment, we always battle issues of indoor air quality," he said.

Ryan said issues with air quality can impact morale and productivity for employees, but he said it is a hard problem to tackle because people react to their environments differently.

"It may go on for months or years without a problem and then somebody new comes into the building and then finally we recognize there’s a problem," he said.

Clemson staff member "daisy-chains" a solution after mold concerns

Around April 2017, Dawn White started experiencing hair loss while working in the Clemson Institute of Environmental Toxicology building on Westinghouse Road in Pendleton.

She said the next year she saw a number of specialists, from allergists to a pulmonoligist. She ended up at the emergency room and urgent care, she said. White, who has asthma, began working from home, concerned that the issues may be related to her office.

The chiller in the building was broken at the time, causing humidity problems, according to an air testing report from the university.

It was during an allergy test in Charleston that she had what she called an "aha moment." A nurse was giving her shots containing small amounts of different molds to test her reactions. During one test, she suddenly felt like she had a fever and couldn't move her head.

"I was scared," she said.

She had reacted to Aspergillus, a common type of mold.

In July 2017, Clemson had Terracon take samples at the Clemson Institute of Environmental Toxicology building. They compared spore counts in the outside environment to those in a building, Barnette said.

The results of that test were among dozens of reports provided by Clemson University Facilities to The Greenville News and Anderson Independent Mail. Faculty, staff and students can access these reports online at cufacilities.sites.clemson.edu.

While the count of Aspergillus was 39 spores per cubic meter in White's office, compared to 156 spores per cubic meter outside the front entrance, it was as high as 17,600 in other spaces inside the building. Terracon recommended replacing the building chiller to solve the humidity problem — likely the mold culprit.

Luke von Oldenburg, an industrial hygienist and member of the Indoor Air Quality Association board, said there is no "magic number" for what constitutes a dangerous spore count.

"Most people breathe in Aspergillus spores every day without getting sick," according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But for some, the CDC notes, the mold can cause health problems.

White contacted the ombudsman's office on campus and said she was encouraged to file a workers compensation claim for her medical expenses. She did so, but the claim was denied. She hired a lawyer to appeal the decision. The university has settled he case, she said.

Eventually, she found another position on campus and said she is now happy to work for Clemson's extension service. Her new office was tested for mold before she moved in.

Throughout her experience, White said she was surprised there was not a clear policy in place for how to deal with an employee who had an allergy issue with a workspace.

In January, facilities formalized guidelines around indoor air quality. If after testing and performing remediation an employee still has concerns, the person is referred to human resources and the access and equity office to find a solution, per the policy document.

"There didn't seem to be a lot of awareness about people like me," she said. "I had to kind of daisy-chain together the help I got."

Chanda said he is not aware of any widespread air issues at Clemson but that the university is up against the same climate challenges from heat and humidity as others in the region.

Challenges of a university in the hills

Robin Newberry is the director of University Facilities' Environmental Safety team. Within 24 hours of an air quality complaint, Newberry's team tries to identify causes, conducting air testing and looking for obvious problems like water leakage, he said.

"We want people to be comfortable in their space," Barnette said. "A lot of faculty, staff and students spend a lot of their life here."

Barnette and Newberry said they often see mildew issues spike in the fall when faculty return from summer break and have kept their office doors closed with the air conditioner running too low, adding moisture to the space.

One frustration Ryan found is that facilities would sometimes test an office but a faculty or staff member would not be present and would not know.

He assembled a committee to improve the process of reporting indoor air quality issues.

"We’ve done a lot of work over the last few months to try to formalize what we do and how we respond," Barnette said.

That includes creating a brochure to provide indoor air quality information to new hires at the university.

Anthony Harvey is the director of maintenance for university housing and dining, which operates maintenance services separate from university facilities. Of the 20,195 work orders received in 2018 for housing, 174 were related to mold or mildew concerns, Harvey said.

Harvey said most of the student concerns end up being dirt or can be solved by behavior changes.

"If you have your bed pushed up against the vent, and that's where you keep your towel, then I can have a quick interaction with somebody to say, here's the moisture that you're adding to your room," Harvey said.

Preventative maintenance and planning for the future

Von Oldenburg said HVAC systems play a "huge role" in air quality and act as the "lungs" for a building. At Clemson, some of the aging HVAC systems on campus are slated for overhauls.

On Thursday, the university trustees gave their final approval for a $60 million expansion and renovation off Daniel Hall, built in 1969.

According to the project proposal, the building's HVAC "is past its useful life and needs replacement."

The university recently submitted plans to the state for other proposed projects, including $26 million to renovate Long Hall, $35 million to renovate Martin Hall and $30 million to renovate Lehotsky Hall, all of which include HVAC updates.

In addition to the overhauls and renovations, Ryan wants to see more investment in preventative maintenance.

"If it’s well maintained, that’s fine, but therein lies the issue," he said. "How well maintained are these?"

Shawn Duncan is the HVAC manager for the campus. He has nine employees that conduct repairs on machines and a team of two that work after hours and clean out HVAC systems. It takes about four years to get through one cycle cleaning all the campus HVACs, although some are cleaned more frequently depending on the type and needs, he said. Duncan said his team also conducts monthly walk-throughs to check units and replace filters.

But Ryan compared the preventative maintenance funding at Clemson to peer universities and found room for growth.

According to his report to the trustees, the university would need to invest an additional $620,000 annually in preventative maintenance to reach the funding level of peers such as Auburn and Georgia Tech.

"We do not defer things that are life safety issues, and we try not to defer things that are building comfort issues," Barnette said. "Like anything else, sometimes we have to patch and wait for funding to renovate and overhaul."