City Hall Contamination

Vice-Mayor Burgess, Councilwoman Waldman and Councilman Shelley appear to be leaning toward moving the City Hall employees to a safer work environment as of this writing.

Radon @ City Hall Update

BUSINESS FROM THE CITY MANAGER

 WEEKLY REPORTS

City Manager Gretsas reported he had forwarded to the Council the latest reports on City Hall. He stated at the last meeting the Council had requested a special meeting staff was still gathering some facts and may be ready for a Special Call meeting in about a week. He also reported the second round of test had similar results as the first set of testing. He noted staff was trying to get the most intelligent information on what was the most effective way to deal with problem.

This would include options on whether to stay in this building versus some

type of interim solution. He advised staff did some cost estimates as requested by Council for some trailer options staff was also looking at some swing space and the missing piece of the information is the timeline for mitigation and whether the building needed to be vacated or not.

Mayor Bateman asked if the company that was hired to do the testing indicated the building needed to be vacated. He questioned if this was an emergency.

City Manager Gretsas answered this was the questions that was asked five or six different ways of the consultants. He advised he contacted the US Department of Environmental Protection hotline asking questions on how imminent is the danger. The problem the EPA has is that there are two controlling factors one is the intensity and the other is the duration. He reported the EPA knows that radon causes lung cancer and it is the second

leading cause of lung cancer but theywere not sure how long an individual has to be exposed to Radon before it causes lung cancer and how high the numbers have to be in order to cause the lung cancer and that is the problem with the EPA answering the question on is it safe to be in the building.

He informed the Council that the United States EPA has its own benchmarks 4pCiL requires action and the State of Florida has a little bit more of a swing. The question staff asked of both the consultant and the Kansas State University people was is it safe to be in the building but they cannot say it is safe or unsafe however the more exposure the greater the risk is enhanced does that mean to evacuate the building no one has told him to evacuate the building he had not been told it was unsafe to be in the building but they have told him the longer people are in the building and the higher the numbers the risk would be greater. The best he could do was to present an array of options.

He informed the Council he had met with all the employees at City Hall so they can have all the information he has in order not to create a panic. He stated he wanted people to feel management was very concerned about the situation but radon can be mitigated. He commented the consultants were not sure the radon was coming from the ground or building materials. Depending on where the radon was coming from would determine the mitigation method In order to mitigate the radon the basement mold issue had to be dealt with because the consultant would need a clear basement to mitigate the radon.

The environmental firm the City hired would have by next week a recommended action plan to mitigate the basement on mold and how to clean it up sufficiently for the second phase which is the radon mitigation. The next step would be to do the cost and practicality comparison of what makes more sense. This would include the discussion of short and long term goals for the building.

He pointed out both the consultants and the Kansas State University group advised this issue should not be prolonged therefore staff was trying to expedite it as best as possible. Mayor Bateman asked what levels of radon there was in the building City Manager Gretsas reviewed the way radon is measured and the way radon is measured is according to how much radiation is in the air caused by radon.

Outside the amount of radon in the atmosphere would 4bLpeCi the amount of radon in the average structure is 13to 14pCiL. The United States EPA says somewhere between 2 to 4pCiL remediation should be considered but at 4pCiL is determined the recommended action level which basically means if the level is 4pCiL or more several actions should be taken. The first action is if the level is above 4pCiL retesting is required to confirm the original results if the level is double 4pCiLthe retesting should be done immediately. Some of the readings in the building were in excess of 8pCiL and this triggered the immediate retesting response.