Despite assurances from NC State Environmental Health and Safety (EHS) that an upcoming renovation in the eighth floor of Dabney Hall will resolve air quality concerns, some graduate students and faculty remain wary of overexposure to dangerous compounds, citing sensor data that may indicate a broader issue with Dabney Hall ventilation.
Alan Boyette, the senior director of energy systems in the NC State Facilities Division, said the Facilities department has been working closely with EHS to plan an upcoming HVAC renovation for the building which will address the highest priorities on the eighth floor. This renovation is the third phase of Dabney Hall upgrades, with a total budget of $1 million, and the University expects to accept a bid for construction on April 4, 2022.
According to University spokesperson Mick Kulikowski, NC State has conducted an in-depth investigation into odor complaints and did not detect concerning chemical levels.
“We understand and appreciate those who have highlighted concerns about the building, but after thorough investigation with highly sensitive instruments — by both internal and external investigators over the past three years — no concerning levels of chemical exposure have been identified,” said the University, in part, in the statement.
Students and faculty notice concerns
Until October 2021, Jim Martin, a professor of chemistry, conducted research on the eighth floor of Dabney Hall with a small group of graduate students. According to Berkeley Griffin, a doctoral student studying chemistry and a member of Martin’s research group, graduate students first noticed an unusual “sickly sweet” odor in their lab on the eighth floor of Dabney Hall in December 2018.
“We do aqueous salt solutions that have no smell in our lab,” Griffin said. “So it clearly was not anything that we were generating.”
Griffin said the group reported this phenomenon to the Dabney Hall building manager, Alan Harvell, and began to record the occurrence of strange odors in January 2019. She said the group suspected these smells sourced from the ventilation system when they noticed stronger odors near the air vents.
However, their concerns were exacerbated in February 2019 when the group visited Argonne National Laboratory in Chicago.
“We’re exhausted, it’s freezing cold, because we’re from North Carolina and we’re now in Chicago,” Griffin said. “So it’s not a fun time. But at some point, one of us kind of colloquially said, ‘Hey, I don’t have a headache. That’s kind of weird.’ And then someone was like, ‘Wait, you’re getting headaches at the office?’ And then somebody else was like, ‘I’ve had headaches at the office too.’”
For more than two years, Martin has worked with Melinda Box, an organic chemistry lab supervisor and the chair of the chemistry department safety committee, to seek support from EHS in investigating chemical odors on the eighth floor. Box said EHS has consistently failed to acknowledge the urgency of these concerns in an ethics complaint filed to the NC State Ethics Line on Oct. 17, 2021.
“In particular, the current approach has involved extensive delays, lack of responsiveness, lack of transparency, lack of expertise, and lack of useful information,” Box wrote, in part, in the complaint.
Box said students on the eighth floor reported headaches, nausea, vomiting and cotton mouth, which, according to the EPA, are symptoms of exposure to Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs). VOCs are chemical compounds frequently used in industrial solvents and household products such as paint and cleaning products. These compounds are volatile, which means they evaporate at room temperature.
Upon discovering common symptoms among the group, the researchers determined further investigation was necessary. Griffin said they contacted EHS in March 2019, but did not receive substantial action and support from the department. In May 2019, graduate students contacted the fire marshal, who referred them to EHS. The group contacted EHS twice in May 2019 regarding individual odor incidents. She said the group was hopeful that EHS would address the situation immediately, but after months of inaction, students chose to contact the authorities.
In August 2019, the graduate students contacted the North Carolina Department of Labor Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA), an organization that establishes and enforces standards for safe working conditions. Ken Kretchman, the director of EHS, explained that OSHA air quality limits tend to be outdated. According to the OSHA website, most of OSHA’s exposure limits have not been updated since 1970.
An OSHA compliance officer visited the eighth floor of Dabney Hall on Oct. 23, 2019 and, according to the official OSHA report, “identified no apparent violations” of North Carolina’s job health and safety laws. Martin said the official was unable to take action because OSHA regulations fail to set adequate limits on dangerous levels of these compounds.
Martin’s research group built sensors to monitor VOC levels and placed them throughout the eighth floor on Oct. 21, 2019. While Martin said these sensors are not reliable indicators of the exact VOC concentrations, he believes the sensor data should not be dismissed.
“We’re confident that they are telling us about relative trends,” Martin said. “We do not know the accuracy of the actual amount.”
According to Martin, a rough trend in the sensor data seemed to indicate a direct correlation between the VOC levels and the outside temperature — increases in outdoor temperature would be followed by spikes in VOC concentrations. Due to the volatility of these compounds, Box began to suspect that VOCs had condensed inside the insulation, evaporating upon contact with warm air generated by heaters in the ducts.
Box said volatile chemicals had been stored inappropriately in a room on the eighth floor without external ventilation, and on several occasions, these chemicals were submitted as waste because they were not properly capped. She theorized that chemical condensate in the ductwork may have been sourced from this room.
After observing trends in the sensor data, Box and Martin alerted EHS and requested further inquiry into the air quality on the eighth floor. Angela Shipman, a Ph.D. student in the chemistry program and a member of Martin’s lab group, said the response from EHS has induced anxiety and stress among students.
“It feels like I’m trying to prove I saw Santa Claus or something,” Shipman said.
Kretchman said once he was notified that occupants were experiencing symptoms, he offered to move the group to different lab space, but they didn’t accept this offer. Some students, including Griffin and Shipman, voluntarily wore respirators in the lab as an additional safety measure.
University begins air quality testing
In December 2019, EHS deployed three summa canister tests — air quality tests in which small tanks intake a sample from surrounding air and are sent to an analytical laboratory — in various spaces on the eighth floor. According to Kretchman, EHS is not selective with air quality testing because the chemistry department is covering the costs of official tests.
In one lab, a 3-minute sample revealed extremely high concentrations of benzene, a carcinogen. Kretchman said this result can be explained by poor lab safety; at the time of sampling, researchers were utilizing benzene on a benchtop, rather than underneath a fume hood.
Martin said results from the summa canister tests cast further doubt on the quality of the ventilation system.
“In my lab, there was non-negligible amounts of benzene and methylene chloride,” Martin said. “And these are things that we don’t work with in my laboratory.”
Kretchman said fumes may waft into other rooms if researchers are not vigilant in ensuring their lab doors remain closed, a practice that prevents contaminants from being carried into the hallway. However, Griffin said sensor data suggests fumes were not progressing down the hallway, as VOC concentrations did not always appear to spike methodically.
At the request of graduate students occupying the seventh floor, an additional sensor was placed on the seventh floor to monitor the VOC concentration level. According to Martin, the data caused concern.
“It was not all the time, but there were several times where you would see nearly identical responses between the seventh and eighth floor,” Martin said. “So that tells you that it’s a building issue and not a local issue.”
Kretchman said there has not been air quality testing on the seventh floor, and he does not consider this testing to be a concern.
Box said Edmond Bowden, the head of the chemistry department at the time, approved 10 additional summa canister tests for the eighth floor on Jan. 23, 2020, and that testing was eventually delayed.
The chemistry department safety committee drafted a memo in March 2020 that detailed ventilation issues on the eighth floor and communicated an urgent need for renovation of laboratory infrastructure. In May 2020, the memo was sent to Bowden to forward to the College of Science. However, according to Box’s ethics complaint, the memo was never shared with the College of Science.
In October 2021, over 20 months after Bowden initially approved sampling according to Box, EHS deployed 13 summa canisters on the eighth floor of Dabney Hall after Martin and his colleagues pushed for additional tests. According to Kretchman, this sampling was more thorough than past sampling; the heat was increased in the ventilation during the collection of short-term and long-term samples to detect possible VOC evaporation.
Kretchman said the summa canister results were evaluated using standards — called Threshold Limit Values (TLVs) — established by the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists (ACGIH), which consists of a committee including toxicologists, occupational physicians and industrial hygienists. According to the American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air-Conditioning Engineers (ASHRAE), the occupational exposure limits are developed for “industrial applications evaluating effects of substances on healthy adult male workers.” These values are more conservative than OSHA limits and are updated annually.
Technician obtained the data recovered from the October 2021 VOC sampling. The highest concentration of methylene chloride detected by the sampling was 90 parts per billion (ppb) in Martin’s lab — 0.18% of the corresponding ACGIH limit, which is 50,000 ppb. Of the 15 VOCs found in any room, Martin’s lab had the highest concentrations of seven of them, and 12 of the 15 VOCs were present there, tied with another room for the most of any space tested.
According to Martin, his group does not use methylene chloride and, although the level doesn’t exceed ACGIH limits, it shouldn’t be detected in his lab. Additionally, benzene, the carcinogen found in 2019 testing, was not detected in any of the samples. Across the board, all sampling results were below ACGIH TLVs.
In a 1995 paper released by Health Canada, the Canadian government’s federal-provincial advisory committee on environmental and occupational health wrote that VOC concentrations which are a fraction of ACGIH TLVs can cause adverse effects. According to the report, when measuring the total amount of VOCs in an area (TVOC), an amount between 0.3-3mg per cubic meter can cause odors, irritation and discomfort. Three of the eight spaces tested in October 2021 had TVOC results in that range.
Shipman said she remains concerned about occupants of the seventh floor, where testing has not been conducted. Griffin said she hopes EHS will conduct “more investigative testing” to have a complete understanding of the Dabney Hall ventilation system and potential additional safety measures.
Upgrades planned for Dabney Hall HVAC system
A 2016 report by RMF Engineering detailed a comprehensive inspection of the building’s ductwork and highlighted major issues, including holes in the ducts. The report noted recirculation of laboratory air in lab 845, which is not Martin’s lab space.
The report said recirculation of air in lab 845 is a violation of ASHRAE Standard 62.1. However, this issue was listed as 14 on a list of 25 priorities, below problems such as missing smoke detectors and dirty ductwork, and has not been addressed.
The University is currently accepting bids for the phase of renovations to Dabney Hall’s 8th floor HVAC system, and according to it, those renovations will affect lab 845. The renovations are, as of Oct. 31, 2021, in the design phase.
Although the National Air Duct Cleaners Association recommends that ductwork be replaced every 10 to 15 years, Boyette said there has never been a total replacement of the ductwork in Dabney Hall, which was built in 1969. While there has been maintenance and replacement of ventilation in certain parts of the building, Boyette and Kretchman said some ductwork is original to the building.
Martin said he has insisted that Dabney Hall is not suitable for the research infrastructure it currently sustains since he was first hired by the University in 1994.
“Major facilities like [Dabney Hall] are built with the expectation of a major renovation every 30 to 50 years,” Martin said. “Well, 1969 was 52 years ago, and there has not been a major renovation.”
Kretchman is optimistic the renovation will improve the air quality in Martin’s lab, though Martin said he refuses to surmise air quality issues will be resolved without sufficient evidence.
“The first thing the University needs to do is identify what is going on,” Martin said. “They should do a whole building set of tests to see how extensive the problem is. … If it’s not addressed now, it’s only going to get worse. We can no longer have a Band-Aid fix, we need a comprehensive solution.”
Martin insisted there needs to be a new building for the chemistry department, or a complete renovation of Dabney Hall, to provide a safe working environment for those in the chemistry department. Boyette said that may not be a feasible outcome. Along with Dabney Hall, the University currently has HVAC upgrades planned for parts of Brooks Hall, Thomas Hall, Jordan Hall and Scott Hall.
“Everybody wishes there was a brand new building everywhere, all over campus, all the time,” Boyette said. “But that’s not what we have. So we do our absolute best to respond and keep things safe in the buildings that we do have, and I think that’s what we’ve been doing here at Dabney, and all the buildings on campus.”
The University provided an official statement in an email on Nov. 17, 2021:
“The university has thoroughly investigated documented concerns around air quality and potential chemical odors in Dabney Hall.
“Beginning in 2019, there were reports of chemical odor complaints to the NC State Environmental Health and Safety Group (EHS) with subsequent complaints to the North Carolina Department of Labor (NC OSHA). NC State thoroughly investigated these concerns through air sampling and onsite visits. Following sampling collection, it was determined that chemical levels measured were far below established occupational exposure limits. NC OSHA did not identify any actionable issues and did not issue a citation or corrective action request.
“Subsequent to initial investigations, additional odor complaints have been filed with the university. To address these concerns, sampling was conducted again in October 2021. The chemical levels identified in sampling were thousands of times lower than established federal occupational standards. NC State uses exposure limits established by the American Conference of Governmental Industrial Hygienists, which are revised annually and are more conservative than limits set by OSHA.
“We understand and appreciate those who have highlighted concerns about the building, but after thorough investigation with highly sensitive instruments — by both internal and external investigators over the past three years — no concerning levels of chemical exposure have been identified.
“Dabney was built in 1969, and it’s no secret that as buildings age, they present new challenges that need to be addressed. We continue to work to ensure Dabney remains a safe place to learn and work.”
Dabney Hall, pictured on Monday, Nov. 8, 2021, is home to the department of chemistry at NC State. Dabney Hall was built in 1969 and is located on north campus at 2620 Yarbrough Drive.
