Tests clear U-46 mobile classrooms

Formaldehyde levels in Elgin Area School District's trailers are within a normal range, officials said Tuesday.

Park Ridge-based Environ International Corp. found formaldehyde concentrations between 1 and 7.5 parts per billion in the district's 64 trailers.

Such concentration levels are considered acceptable, said David Regelbrugge, the industrial hygienist and senior manager at Environ who led the testing.

Normal urban backgrounds generally range from 0.8 to 6.8 parts per billion, Regelbrugge told the Daily Herald March 31. The federal Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry has set a chronic minimal risk level of 8 parts per billion.

Using a National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health test, Environ officials drew classroom air through an absorbent silica gel tube for about five hours, Regelbrugge said. Most tests were conducted March 25-28, when students were on spring break. The tests cost around $60,000.

U-46 trailers' low formaldehyde levels, Regelbrugge said, are likely due to the age of them

"Most of them are older," he said. "Most of the time the concern is with newer trailers."

U-46 first said it would test all mobile classrooms last month, after a Bartlett parent petitioned the school board to check trailers for noxious fumes.

Beverly Jaszczurowski, the mother of a Nature Ridge kindergartner, cited a study released Feb. 14 by the Centers for Disease Control.

The CDC study found high indoor levels of formaldehyde in travel trailers and mobile homes provided to displaced victims of Hurricane Katrina.

Long-term exposure to formaldehyde can be linked to cancer and respiratory illness, the study says.

Jaszczurowski suggested students attending class in mobile units for upward of six hours a day could suffer similar health effects as those in Katrina trailers.

"You know, obviously I'm glad they're not off the top high (levels of formaldehyde), but I'm not sure the tests have been done in the most effective manner. I'm not sure they've gotten the most accurate results," Jaszczurowski said Tuesday, upon hearing news of the results.

Phil Pecevich, president of North Carolina-based Air Quality Research Inc., a North Carolina company that manufacturers and analyzes formaldehyde monitors, said Environ's testing method may not lend an accurate representation of average conditions.

"Short-term testing only gives you a small window," he said.

Formaldehyde levels, Pecevich said, can change drastically from hour to hour, morning to evening.

"In order to get an accurate reading, you really need to measure for five to seven days," Pecevich said.

"Ideally you would like to mimic the exact classroom circumstances," Pecevich said. "It's not always completely possible. But you get as close as you can."

Based on the results, the district does not plan to make any changes in its use of mobile classrooms, interim Superintendent Mary Jayne Broncato said in a news release.

The U-46 board recently put in a $535,401 bid for six new mobile units.

"I'd certainly talk to the manufacturer ahead of time," Regelbrugge said. "They might want to do some sampling of the (formaldehyde levels)."