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Expert Releases Comprehensive Guide for Removing Mold

PRWEB.COM Newswire

Mount Laurel, New Jersey (PRWEB) May 01, 2013

Mold removal can be a dangerous task for any home or business owner. Allergens, irritants and illness can be spread by mold’s seedlings called spores. Mold infestation occurs when spores go airborne, filling the air with concentrated doses of the tiny seeds in search for a habitable environment for a new colony. The spores find dark, damp, wet areas to fester and grow. If that place happens to be inside a house or commercial building, indoor air quality can instantly diminish along with a heightened chance for health risks such as shortness of breath, high fever, skin and eye irritation and other serious side effects.

It is extremely important to understand that coming into contact with mold is dangerous. However large or small the situation, environmental governing bodies like the EPA and the IICRC strongly advise wearing Personal Protective Equipment (PPE) like heavy duty goggles, gloves, and N95 grade breathing respirators when near a mold colony.

Containing mold during the removal process is also a key component to the project’s success. Generally, if an affected area is greater than three square feet, a containment barrier must be put in place to avoid spreading of mold spores to other areas of the building. Mold can spread its spores dead or alive, increasing the risk of an outbreak in other areas of the home or office.

Professional remediation specialists like SI Restoration mold services have the tools and skills to handle large removal projects. And while the Baltimore-based specialists have always made themselves available to the public as a provider of reliable advice and tips, SI Restoration has published a new, easy to use guide entitled How to Remove Mold.

The tool is simply titled. It is simply outlined. For home and business owners on a budget whose affected area is three square feet or smaller, this comprehensive guide provides all of the information necessary to get the job done right the first time. SI Restoration has funneled decades of expertise into a one-page guide for all to use and benefit from. Best of all, the tool follows strict regulations outlined by the EPA and IICRC’s S520 Guidelines.

Perhaps the most important aspect of the guide comes at its end. Advising readers to contact a mold remediation specialist if the project is too large to handle cannot be understated. However, these timeless tips should prove useful to home and business owners for the foreseeable future.

Read the full story at http://www.prweb.com/releases/2013/5/prweb10688231.htm

Article source: http://www.digitaljournal.com/pr/1218753

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Article source: http://www.sbwire.com/press-releases/new-company-for-mold-testing-in-winston-salem-offers-tips-to-fight-molds-at-home-251816.htm

State environmental regulators determined that oil and gas development damaged the water supplies for at least 161 Pennsylvania homes, farms, churches and businesses between 2008 and the fall of 2012, according to a cache of nearly 1,000 letters and enforcement orders written by Department of Environmental Protection officials and obtained by The Sunday Times.

The determination letters are sent to water supply owners who ask state inspectors to investigate whether oil and gas drilling activities have polluted or diminished the flow of water to their wells.

View interactive map:

Gas Drilling Complaints Map

Inspectors declared the vast majority of complaints – 77 percent of 969 records – unfounded, lacking enough evidence to tie them definitively to drilling or caused by a different source than oil and gas exploration, like legacy pollution, natural conditions or mining.

One in six investigations across the roughly five-year period – 17 percent of the records – found that oil and gas activity disrupted water supplies either temporarily or seriously enough to require companies to replace the spoiled source.

The letters confirming contamination or water loss from drilling and the orders that require companies to fix the damage provide what is likely the best official count of the industry’s impact on individual water supplies in Pennsylvania because the state does not track the disruptions.

The Sunday Times requested the records in late 2011, and received access to them late last year after a state appeals court ruled that the DEP had to release the documents regardless of whether it was hard for the agency to find them in its files.

While the records compiled by the newspaper offer a more complete tally of the number of affected properties than was previously available, the count is not exhaustive:

- DEP tracks oil and gas-related disruptions to water supplies based on broad incidents, each of which might affect one or many water supplies, making comparisons between the totals difficult. A case of gas migrating into Dimock Twp. drinking water, for example, is considered one incident by DEP even though the state determined it affected 18 water wells used by 19 families. DEP spokesman Kevin Sunday said the agency compiles “some information” on the number of affected water wells and springs, but DEP’s statistics on impacted water supplies differ from the numbers documented in the letters and orders released to The Sunday Times. Between 2010 and 2012, DEP counted 103 impacted water supplies – six more than were documented for those years in the records released to the newspaper.

- DEP repeatedly argued in court filings during the open records case that it does not count how many determination letters it issues, track where they are kept in its files or maintain its records in a way that would allow a comprehensive search for the letters, so there is no way to assess the completeness of the released documents.

- Before a 2011 regulatory update, solutions worked out privately between homeowners and drillers were not required to be reported to the department. The Sunday Times requested the notices of potential water contamination that now have to be passed on to DEP by drilling companies that receive them from residents, but the request was denied by DEP and the state’s Office of Open Records because the documents are considered part of protected investigations.

- The conclusions described in the determination letters are seldom absolute because substances read as signals of drilling-related contamination are also routine signs of other man-made or natural influences.

For regulators, tracking broad cases is more useful from a technical standpoint than counting impacted water wells, Mr. Sunday said in an email.

“The number of water supplies impacted is not always reflective of the scope of the problem,” he said.

Using its definition of incidents, DEP counted 83 cases of drilling-related impacts on water supplies between 2008 and 2012, roughly the same period covered by the records released to The Sunday Times. The state has confirmed water supply impacts in 128 broad cases since 1987, he said.

The state’s case-based tally suggests the rate of drilling-related contamination incidents increased with the start of the Marcellus boom: Drilling damaged water supplies at a rate of more than 16 cases per year during the past five years, according to the state’s accounting. For the 20 years prior to 2008, the incidence rate was fewer than three cases per year.

Mr. Sunday said the increase can be attributed to a shift from drilling in western areas of the Commonwealth with a long history of oil and gas extraction to central and eastern regions where the shallow geology is complex, gas-rich and less studied. Those factors mean “that there will be an adjustment period during which operators refine casing and cementing practices in order to most effectively establish and maintain the highest standards of well integrity,” he said.

The most recent trends – DEP counted five contamination cases that impacted roughly 19 water supplies in 2012 compared to 18 cases that impacted 27 water supplies in 2011 – suggest that the improvements are working, he said.

Transparency questioned

The department’s water testing and reporting protocols have come under scrutiny in recent months as environmental activists and homeowners whose drilling-related complaints were dismissed have come to doubt the determinations’ accuracy and value.

DEP recently changed its policy for issuing water contamination notices to require administrators in Harrisburg to approve them before they are sent out from the regional field offices that conduct the investigations. The state’s laboratory technical director, deposed when a resident appealed the DEP’s conclusion that drilling activities had not polluted his water supply, acknowledged that DEP reviews and reports back to homeowners only those contaminants it considers indicative of drilling-related contamination, not all of the contaminants that might surface in its water tests – a common practice for tailoring laboratory analysis but one that spurred critics to question the thoroughness and transparency of DEP’s investigations.

In January, state Auditor General Eugene A. DePasquale announced his office is conducting a performance audit of the DEP’s water testing program to “determine the adequacy and effectiveness of DEP’s monitoring of water quality as potentially impacted by shale gas development activities” between 2009 and 2012.

Debate over the safety of oil and gas extraction – especially the combined tools of horizontal drilling and hydraulic fracturing used in pursuit of fuel from unconventional sources like the Marcellus Shale – is often characterized as an argument between activists who exaggerate claims of damage and industry public relations teams who minimize them.

But the determination letters released by the state reveal a widespread suspicion among water supply owners – farmers and summer residents, school board members and mini-mart operators, churches and a Wyoming County municipal water authority – that when their water seems soured, gas drilling operations might be to blame.

According to the state’s records, they are sometimes right and for a myriad of reasons.

More than half of the records of contaminated water supplies confirmed by the state involved gas, loosened by drilling, seeping into drinking water aquifers. Faulty natural gas wells channeled methane into the water supplies for 90 properties, the letters show. Three of those cases were tied to old wells, one of which caused an explosion at a home after gas entered through a floor drain and accumulated in a basement.

Drilling-related road construction contaminated water at two homes, while construction for a large water-storage pond called an impoundment contaminated another. Pipeline construction twice polluted water supplies with sediment. Stray cement or rock waste displaced by drilling, called cuttings, contaminated seven water supplies.

The state has never implicated the underground gas extraction process known as hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, in a contamination incident, but inspectors noted that brine contamination suggesting “an infiltration of frac water into the shallow ground water,” damaged six fresh-water springs used for drinking water in northwestern Pennsylvania.

Some of the problems were short-lived: the DEP letters describe 20 of the confirmed contamination incidents as temporary.

Regulations needed

The incidents documented in the letters reinforce why the state and industry have focused on strengthening standards for above-ground activities so materials don’t infiltrate the surface and well construction to ensure the cemented casings that protect groundwater are sound, Marcellus Shale Coalition CEO Kathryn Klaber said.

The natural gas industry has worked on several fronts to investigate and respond to contamination complaints, including providing drinking water to homeowners while their concerns are investigated, she said. The organization and university partners are also compiling a database of pre-drilling groundwater quality to help researchers assess background water quality and insulate operators from misplaced blame.

The letters obtained by The Sunday Times describe an array of problems that exist in Pennsylvania water supplies unrelated to oil and gas exploration, like high metal, salt and methane content and bacteria from surface water or nesting creatures invading poorly built water wells.

A 2011 Penn State study found that about 40 percent of water wells it tested prior to gas well drilling failed at least one federal drinking water standard, usually for coliform bacteria, turbidity or manganese. Pennsylvania is one of only a few states in the nation that does not have private water well construction standards.

“It really is time for Pennsylvania to put in place some standards for private water wells,” Ms. Klaber said.

Regulations could help address pre-existing water quality problems and make sure water wells are stable enough to handle any nearby industrial activity, including oil and gas operations, she said. “When you’ve got vibration and activity proximate to an unlined water well you’re going to get infiltration of dirt and other materials. That turbidity, usually temporary, is going to affect that water.”

Presumed responsible

Indicators of drilling-related contamination might equally point to past pollution or natural systems changing with weather or seasons, so the contaminants DEP cites as evidence of a drilling impact in one letter can be cited as evidence of background water conditions in another.

Manganese, iron and a measure of the salts and minerals dissolved in the water known as total dissolved solids (TDS) are among the elevated parameters most frequently noted by DEP inspectors in water wells they determined were not influenced by drilling, but in at least 30 cases where the DEP determined that oil and gas drilling had contaminated water supplies, increases in manganese, iron or TDS were described as a primary or sole indicator of a problem.

Letters sent to nine McKean County homeowners during an involved investigation of drilling-related contamination captured the difficulty of drawing conclusions based on substances that can indicate both normal conditions and harm: “An elevated level of these compounds is not uncommon in this region and can occur naturally,” the investigator in the case wrote, “but it is also recognized that they can become elevated as a result of drilling oil and gas wells.”

DEP does not rely only on water test results to determine whether a water supply was affected by drilling, Mr. Sunday said. “We employ a very complex analysis in these investigations.” Inspectors “consider things like local water well and gas well integrity, a geochemical evaluation of the water supply, and the local rock formations and how water flows through them,” he said.

In many cases, the failure that led to contamination is left as opaque as turbid water.

DEP blamed a Marcellus Shale driller in Susquehanna County for water contamination in 2010 after the salt, barium, strontium and gas concentrations in the Rush Twp. home’s water supply spiked after the company drilled and fracked a well 600 feet away.

The post-drilling barium levels reached 47 milligrams per liter – more than 23 times the safe level of the toxic metal in drinking water – while the TDS, chloride and sodium levels peaked at more than 10,800, 5,800 and 3,800 milligrams per liter, respectively – more than 20 times the guidance levels set for aesthetic reasons like taste and appearance.

The determination letter and the subsequent order requiring the driller, Stone Energy, to replace the water well do not describe the mechanism for the pollution. Instead, Mr. Sunday said, the company was presumed responsible for the contamination based on the timing of the impact and the distance from the gas well and the company did not rebut the state’s finding.

Stone Energy believed its drilling activity was not to blame for the pollution, but agreed to drill the homeowner a new water well and repay him for out-of-pocket living expenses without admitting to causing the problem, according to the enforcement order.

High TDS, chlorides, sodium, barium and strontium – all potential signatures of contamination from Marcellus development wastewaters – “also occur in brackish or saline groundwater which have been documented at relatively shallow depths in this part of the state,” Mr. Sunday said. Although the concentrations of those elements surged to levels between 46 and 142 times the pre-drill concentration measured on the property, the post-drilling samples were taken from a different, deeper water well and so could have been affected by the shallow brine.

Critics of natural gas drilling say the ambiguity left by DEP investigations means the state needs more robust tools and a stronger will to pursue clues about contamination to its source.

Anthony Ingraffea, Ph.D., an engineering professor at Cornell University and a vocal critic of the oil and gas industry he once worked for, said that when DEP says it cannot find a connection between water well contamination and nearby gas activity it does not mean there is no link.

“If DEP sent me a letter that said, ‘We can find no connection,’ my natural question as a scientist would be, ‘How did you look?’” he said.

He was concerned by DEP’s practice of counting cases without counting individually impacted water supplies, which he said “makes their statistics look better.”

“It doesn’t help answer the question, which is how many individual families’ private drinking water wells have been contaminated by oil and gas activities,” he said. “No one knows the answer. Who should know the answer? DEP.”

Contact the writer: llegere@timesshamrock.com

Article source: http://thetimes-tribune.com/news/sunday-times-review-of-dep-drilling-records-reveals-water-damage-murky-testing-methods-1.1491547

A gardener discovered the break-in around 10 a.m. on Saturday, according to church officials.

Vandals broke into the Horizon Community Church in Palmdale and ransacked the pastor’s office.

The doors of the church had been damaged, and a safe had been opened and documents stolen, Pastor K.C. Wahe said.

A deposit box had also been broken into, but there was no money stored inside overnight, Wahe added.

Someone also turned on a fire hose inside the church and caused extensive water damage.

Sunday services will go on as planned, but will be take place in a courtyard outside the church, according to Wahe.

Check back for updates on this developing story.

Article source: http://ktla.com/2013/05/18/vandals-break-into-palmdale-church-cause-water-damage/

Green Architrends

By Amado de Jesus
Philippine Daily Inquirer

Singaporeans readily acknowledge that they have three kinds of weather: hot, hotter and tropical. In the Philippines, we have only two kinds: dry and wet. During the dry season, temperatures and humidity go up. During the wet season, people deal with torrential rains and destructive floods.

Article source: http://business.inquirer.net/122499/how-to-protect-your-house-from-water-damage

Firefighters were dispatched to a single-story home with a basement, 807 S.E. 97th Ave., at 2:24 p.m., where arriving crews found light smoke, said Vancouver Fire Department Battalion Chief Dave Seabrook. They discovered fire in a wall behind the laundry room on the ground floor and extinguished the fire before it spread to the house.

The fire damaged the wall and severed a water line, causing water damage to the first floor and basement.

Luckily, Seabrook said, the house has working smoke alarms that alerted the occupants about the fire. Everyone, including the pets, was able to get out safely.

In total, 15 personnel from the Vancouver Fire Department responded to the fire. Southeast 97th Avenue was blocked while crews worked at the residence.

So far, the cause is unknown, but an electrical fire is considered a potential cause, Seabrook said. The Vancouver Fire Marshal’s Office is investigating.

Article source: http://www.columbian.com/news/2013/may/17/fire-water-damage-vancouver-home/

Cleveland OH (PRWEB) May 17, 2013

Restoration Local, one of the leading providers of water damage repair and restoration in the United States, is offering recommendations to property owners on the best way to handle water damage to their hardwood flooring. Hardwood floors are becoming increasingly popular, but may be susceptible to serious problems due to water or flood damage.

Hardwood floors are treated different ways depending on a number of mitigating factors, such as response time, the type of flooring involved, replacement value, type of wood used, the type of finish applied, how it was installed, and the amount of water and moisture that come into play. No two scenarios are exactly alike.

Hardwood flooring can also absorb a great deal of moisture if not properly treated, so like any case of water damage, it is imperative to begin the repair and restoration process as soon as it is safe to do so. Hardwood flooring can absorb moisture which may result in warping or cracking of the material over time. Restoration specialists are prepared to deal with this sort of problem.

Installation procedures may also be compromised, since water damage may cause nails to begin pulling up or glues and adhesives to become loose. This also allows for water to become trapped under the flooring, where it may easily cause mold to grow. This is also true for water that become trapped under any laminate that has been applied to the flooring.

After the drying has been completed, the floor’s finish may be affected, and in some cases will have to be removed in order to allow all of the remaining moisture to be treated. If warping or cracking of the floor occurs, professional treatment will be required for an effective fix.

The repair and restoration of hardwood floors is a complex job, and not one that should be undertaken by the average homeowner. A restoration professional has the training, experience, procedures and tools to handle even the largest cases of hardwood floor water damage. Don’t entrust your home to anyone but the most qualified restoration experts.

Based in Cleveland OH, Restoration Local is one of the leading providers of water damage repair and restoration, with service in 30 states. They are available 24/7 and all work is guaranteed.

For the original version on PRWeb visit: http://www.prweb.com/releases/prweb2013/5/prweb10736368.htm

Article source: http://www.virtual-strategy.com/2013/05/17/restoration-local-offers-recommendations-treating-water-damaged-hardwood-floors

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Grand Fondo New York in action. To donate to the Stony Point Seals for this cause, please visit www.stonypointseals.com

Stony Point, NY – May 15, 2013 – While the state, federal and local governments so far have provided Rocklanders more bluster than actual help, local residents continue to kick in to do the heavy lifting helping victims of Hurricane Sandy get back on their feet.

The Stony Point Seals aren’t waiting for next February to raise money for locals in need, this year. They will be riding the Gran Fondo Bike Race on Sunday, May 19, 2013 from 7 a.m. to 6 p.m. – or whenever they finish 100 miles of road – from New York City to Bear Mountain and back again. It’s all for the same cause they’ve been focused on for the past six months – raising money to help local victims from Hurricane Sandy and Hurricane Irene.

Campagnolo Gran Fondo New York is a 100-mile cycling challenge for 7,000 riders from over 70 countries on May 19, 2013. The race starts in NYC on the George Washington Bridge, and continues north to Bear Mountain State Park. It finishes after 100 miles and 7,000 ft of climbing in Weehawken, NJ.

It’s been a long road the past six months for John Fox and Tom Ossa, who have organized many campaigns this year to create awareness of the plight that many Stony Point residents along the Hudson River have endured since Hurricane/Superstorm Sandy arrived in late October. For several communities, such as Ba Mar, River Road and Beach Road, homes were destroyed or significantly damaged. At the height of the disaster, over 65 families – 200+ individuals – were sheltered at the Stony Point Volunteer Ambulance Corps and subsequently housed for months at the Stony Point Center.

While the rescue and relief phases have passed, the recovery phases continue.

Locals felt frustration again this week, when a much ballyhooed “Sandy Help Center” came to town, but little in substantive assistance was actually offered. Very few turned out for the “help” and aside from a photo-op for local supervisors and Congresswoman Nita Lowey, little was accomplished. The waterfront of Stony Point still lays in shambles with no clear path forward to recovery.

North Rockland resident Laura Mariotti cautioned residents that the help center won’t actually offer much help. She stated “I was just there. This is only for help filling out the NY Sandy Help application. If you already filled it out and submitted it, you need to wait for a case worker to contact you. There is nothing further these people can do at the Help Center.”

Tom Ossa, president of the North Rockland Business Alliance, explained, “It typically can take years for families to get back to some sense of normalcy after a disasters like these (referring to both Hurricanes/Supertorm Sandy and Irene). Sure, people are back in their homes, but now the work to catch up on the crushing weight of bills, the roof repairs, the mold removal and of course – the raising of houses to comply with FEMA and State regulations – well, that work has just begun. Some didn’t have much to begin with, and now all this happens. We want these people to know that the North Rockland Community and local charities will *not* give up on them.”

John Fox’ Stony Point Seals held the 14th Annual Polar Plunge by the Hudson River in February. Overlooking some of the houses that were severely damaged from the storm, hundreds of participants jumped in the icy water to raise over $35,000 for the local Families affected by Superstorm Sandy. Consistent annual volunteers such as Marjory Metel Fox, Liz Possel, Chris Bryceland, John Corcoran, Michael Lydon and more, worked for months to get all the details in place. Thereafter, all the volunteers huddled together and began the work to provide assistance to the Families affected.

In addition to the Stony Point Seals, many volunteers have assisted in various ways over the months since the storm. According to Tom Ossa: “I can’t even begin to list all the people that have helped out with the fundraising efforts. Alison Bimbo, Jean Talamini, Christina Tesik, Josh Eccher from the Christian Chruch of Rockland, Lionel Mathis…I mean the list goes on and on. And they did it all from their hearts. Truth be told if they didn’t help, I wouldn’t have been able to do anything.”

“We’re not done, either. John’s gonna kick my @$$ on Sunday like he’s been for the past few weeks we’ve been training, but the real winner is the families in the area that will get the help from the donations. We’ll be doing some more events like this in the future, too. We’re not stopping anytime soon. There’s still some people suffering from Irene. We’re gonna address that, too.”

To donate to the Stony Point Seals for this cause, please visit www.stonypointseals.com.

The Stony Point Seals, a registered 501(c)3 Charity, has been providing assistance to North Rockland Families for 14 years. Their main event each year is an Annual Polar Plunge into the Hudson River in Stony Point. More information at www.stonypointseals.com or stonypointseals5@gmail.com.

Article source: http://www.rocklandtimes.com/2013/05/16/riding-100-miles-sunday-to-raise-more-funds-for-local-victims-of-recent-hurricanes/