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Remediation effort ongoing in campus residence halls

Oct 23, 2018

Remediation is underway to remove and resolve mold concerns in some residence halls on the Indiana University Bloomington campus.

An IU employee checks a residence hall.
An IU employee checks a residence hall during remediation efforts.Photo by Samantha Thompson, Indiana University

“At the core of this is student safety,” said Tom Morrison, vice president of capital planning and facilities. “Throughout this effort, our goals have been to find where the mold is, to clean it up and remediate it, to stop it from happening again, and, of course, at the core of all that, is to make it safe.”

A number of IU offices and contracted firms are working to rapidly address reports of mold. IU is inspecting and cleaning the air conditioning and piping systems in every room in Foster and McNutt, the residence halls where most of the work has focused. In addition, the heating and cooling units in the common areas in these two residence halls, as well as the buildings’ mechanical equipment, are being thoroughly cleaned.

“We’ve mobilized a full-scale operation to ensure we’re investigating every case and putting all of our effort into this,” said Ben Hunter, superintendent for public safety. “We’re bringing in extra crews as well as highly qualified and credentialed third-party vendors to address the situation.”

Multiple departments, including IU’s Residential Programs and Services, Environmental Health and Safety, Public Safety and Institutional Assurance, and Facilities are collectively addressing the issue and working alongside some of IU’s highest-level administrators to focus on both prevention and remediation.

In addition to the cleaning work being done, IU has engaged EMLab, an outside company that examines indoor air for mold. EMLab is testing every room and all common areas in Foster and McNutt as well as areas of concern in other residence halls on campus. Reports on these tests started coming back at the end of last week and are being shared with students so they can see the results for their living area.

Students and parents are receiving timely information via direct messages as well as on the website buildings.iu.edu. This site is updated daily with information on the crews’ work and includes a number of frequently asked questions to help students in the affected residence halls navigate the situation.

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Amanda Roach

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