School board approves $3M mold fix at Whale Branch, discusses district-wide testing
Beaufort County’s school board approved a $3.4 million plan Wednesday night to fix mold damage, drainage and HVAC at Whale Branch Elementary and Middle schools, one month after mold was uncovered in the walls.
Construction workers found the “high-water activity mold” inside the walls at both schools while replacing classroom HVAC units.
While the mold “was likely a result of faulty air-conditioning installations performed 20 years ago,” it was present only in walls adjacent to the units and not in the units themselves, district spokeswoman Candace Bruder previously told the Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette.
Staff at both schools were asked to work remotely from Sept. 25-28, during which time Terracon, an environmental consulting firm, confirmed the presence of mold, and “confirmed that the mold has been properly sealed off and currently presents no danger to building occupants.”
The district held meetings with school staff and community members to discuss the issue and float the possibility of sending students to different schools while repair work was completed. However, students returned to both buildings on Oct. 5 for hybrid classes.
The district will pay $1.645 million to complete the work at Whale Branch Elementary, $705,000 of which will go to completing the originally planned HVAC work for the entire building.
The other $940,000 will go toward replacing outdoor facades for the building, mold remediation and drainage work.
“As part of what happened, the wall lost some structural integrity, so we’re going to have to replace parts of the wall,” Oetting said.
Rather than trying to match the replacement to the current exterior, the district is planning to paint the new facades in primary colors to “add some character” to the building.
The facade replacement will raise the elevation of the building to avoid groundwater.
The drainage work at both buildings will include site grading near the building to allow for drainage, cleaning existing storm water pipes and connecting condensate lines and roof drains to underground stormwater pipes.
Roof downspouts and HVAC condensates will empty into a new underground collection system to the nearby pond and marsh.
The district will pay $1,730,500 to complete the work at Whale Branch Middle, $830,000 of which will go toward the originally planned HVAC work. The remaining $900,500 will go toward drainage work and mold remediation.
Those changes would affect four of the school’s six wings, along with roof and classroom HVAC units.
The additional work will move the planned completion date for work at both schools from June 2021 to November of that year, Oetting said last week.
The district will use the same contractors currently completing work at the schools, Oetting said, meaning there would be no break between the current projects and proposed repair work.
The district will pay for these projects from its 2023 8% funding pool. That funding is a yearly process that allows the school district to borrow up to 8% of the county’s assessed value for building maintenance.
This equates to about $20 million per year — an amount that is wildly outstripped by existing maintenance requests. The list of potential summer 2021 8% projects presented to the school board in May totaled $37.6 million. The projects that were approved represented $20 million of work.
The school board voted 8-2-1 to approve the plan and funding source. John Dowling and JoAnn Orischak voted “no,” and Rachel Wisnefski abstained because she was absent for some of the discussion.
What about mold testing at other schools?
The board also approved getting quotes to see how much it would cost to mold test each school in the county. That vote was 8-2-1, with Christina Gwozdz and Richard Geier voting no and Tricia Fidrych abstaining.
William Smith initially requested that the district test every school for mold, saying he heard complaints from his constituents in Lady’s Island and St. Helena about mold.
Oetting replied that indoor testing at Whale Branch wouldn’t have detected the mold in the walls prior to the construction that “breached the envelope” of the walls.
The district tests for mold by comparing outdoor air samples to indoor air samples, and typically only tests if somebody makes a complaint to the district about an irritant.
If you’re from the Lowcountry, you’re very much aware that there’s mold in the air everywhere we go,” Oetting said. “In some fashion, we’re going to find mold in every school… there has to be some protocol.”
Smith’s motion was amended by Wisnefski from a demand for testing to a demand for pricing.