Ventilation

Vents and ceiling tiles at White Oak Elementary School in Baltimore County are being cleaned or replaced and outside walls resealed after complaints from teachers that the school's heating and cooling system may have caused some of them to become ill. Teachers met with school system officials yesterday to get a progress report and were told that the school's heating and air-conditioning system could be replaced by spring 2002, or sooner if needed....

Three employees have sued the owners and managers of the troubled Investment Building in Towson for $18.3 million, claiming that negligence and coverups caused them to contract debilitating illnesses from mold and other contaminants inside the building. In the suit filed yesterday in Baltimore County Circuit Court, Marina Eddy, Carol Fegan and Desiree Martin accuse the owners and managers of "failure to provide even the most minimal inspection, cleaning or maintenance" of the structure's heating and cooling systems, which date to 1966.

The Investment Building in Towson was reopened yesterday after final tests showed no significant levels of airborne asbestos fibers. The 700 county and state workers assigned to the building were asked to return to work today, although some said they had grave concerns because of the building's troubled history. "I want written assurance regarding the safety of the building from the state and county, given the absence of concern regarding the health and welfare of their employees," said Deborah Veystrk, a supervisor with the county's Department of Social Services.

Baltimore County has stopped paying rent at a Towson office tower where several dozen state and county employees have complained of breathing problems and illnesses. A leaky roof flooded parts of the 11th floor of the Investment Building this week, adding to a long list of maintenance problems that building managers have struggled to address for a year. Among the offices damaged was that of Dr. Michelle A. Leverett, the county's highest-paid employee. "We're mad. We're going to withhold rent," said Robert J. Barrett, a top assistant to County Executive C. A. Dutch Ruppersberger.

The 700 state and county employees working inside the Investment Building in Towson could have breathed easier for years if Baltimore County had followed through on a renovation agreement struck with the landlord in 1996. The owners of the office tower, where workers complain of asthma, respiratory infections and other ailments, agreed four years ago to replace a pair of aging rooftop ventilation units with four newer machines, according to lease documents reviewed by The Sun. But the landlord never did the work.

Hoping to focus attention on their work conditions, 50 state and Baltimore County employees gathered for a quiet noontime rally yesterday outside a Towson office building that they say has poor ventilation, mold and other contaminants. "All we want is the building cleaned up," said Jane Koel, a county social worker who thinks the Investment Building has caused her breathing problems and infections, and is the source of the Legionella pneumophila bacteria present in her system. "You walk in there and you can smell the stagnation in the air. There is no circulation."

A Mayo couple were treated for carbon monoxide poisoning yesterday after the noxious fumes built up in their home from an improperly ventilated gas-powered generator, officials said. William Phips, 67, and his wife, Virginia, 60, were taken to Maryland Shock Trauma Center in Baltimore, where they were placed in a hyperbaric chamber and later released. A contractor working on a new floor at their house refused treatment, a hospital spokeswoman said. A rescue squad was dispatched to the couple's new home in the 4100 block of Carrs Ridge Road about 11: 30 a.m. when William Phips became unconscious.

The old volunteer-built barns and sheds of the Carroll County Agriculture Center will shelter the last 4-H Fair of the 20th century in July, then promptly be torn down to make way for an expanded arena for the 2001 fair, officials said yesterday.Center board members had hoped to start construction this year and have a new building ready for the 2000 fair.But changes in design to accommodate concerns of neighbors in the adjacent residential community delayed the project, said Lawrence Meeks, president of the center's board of directors.

Among the demands for updated equipment that poultry growers routinely hear about from their companies, none is so popular, costly or controversial as "tunnel ventilation," a system of high-powered fans designed to keep air moving on hot days.Some processors, such as Perdue, are so convinced the system improves performance -- both for them and for the growers -- that they pay for half the cost. But even then, farmers often need a new loan for the equipment. Company reimbursements don't include interest, and a grower's contract can be cut off before reimbursement is complete.

In July, two months before three families were evacuated from their homes in the Calvert Ridge subdivision in Elkridge because of high levels of methane gas, two families in a Laurel subdivision who own houses also built by Ryan Homes were forced out for the same reason.The evacuated occupants in Laurel's Wyndham Woods and those in Calvert Ridge and nearby Marshalee Estates subdivision -- where a family was evacuated last month -- want answers from Ryan officials about the source of the methane, which has heightened safety concerns and contributed to lower property values, they say. The Laurel families moved out July 25 and were back home a week later.