Kane coroner: Air purifiers costing $13,000 to fight morgue odors actually unsafe

Kane County Board members will vote next week on an emergency $13,000 expenditure to provide air purification units to address smells from the county morgue.

That cash will be money wasted on a useless solution, Coroner Rob Russell said.

Russell said county board Chairman Chris Lauzen already purchased the 12 air purification units. And Russell's staff has already deemed them both useless and a potential health hazard. The final vote will be to spend the money on units that will never be used.

The expense followed a report by Don Biggs, the county's executive director of facilities. Biggs visited the morgue after complaints from employees in neighboring buildings about a foul odor seeping out of the building. An influx of dead bodies in advanced states of decomposition caused a smell Biggs deemed "unbelievable" and "disgusting."

The morgue, which used to be a laundry facility, did not have enough freezer space to house all the bodies.

Lauzen has the authority to make emergency purchases. He was out of town Friday and unavailable for comment.

Russell, in an interview, said his staff has processed the decomposing bodies and that has reduced the odor problem. But it's only a matter of time before it happens again because of how outdated his facility is.

"We don't have the decomposed bodies now," Russell said. "But it's a hot summer. And I'm afraid they are just out there waiting for us to find them."

Russell said the purchase of the air purification units happened without any consultation with the morgue staff. As a result, once they were installed, the staff found the units produced a potentially dangerous level of ozone when cranked up to high enough levels to actually reduce the smell.

Professional testing confirmed their suspicions, leading to the decision to mothball the units.

"There's really only one solution to this and all the other problems with our building," Russell said. "And that's a new building."

An increasing number of board members seem to be coming around to the idea of a new coroner's facility. It would most likely be located somewhere on the larger judicial center campus in an unincorporated area near St. Charles.

Money is the main stumbling block. Russell said to get the ball rolling, he's hoping to explore the use of more than $2 million sitting in a public building fund the county controls.