BUNNELL — A mold study has revealed that air quality at Flagler County Sheriff’s Office headquarters is good, according to a statement released Monday by the county.
The county hired Mold-Spec, an Ormond Beach company, to collect air samples from 22 different areas inside the Sheriff’s Office Operations Center, 901 E. Moody Blvd., Bunnell. Each of them showed common allergen levels lower than those found outside the building.
“Based upon the analytical results, the air quality is well within normal limitation; there is no concern for poor air quality,” Mold-Spec assessor Ginger Stanley wrote in a three-page report.
The air quality at the Operations Center came into question in November after four special investigators who shared the same office in the southeast wing of the building reported skin rashes and respiratory problems. They suspected an allergic reaction to mold at the county-owned facility.
Sheriff’s Office commanders stationed the investigators off-site at the detention center administration headquarters on Justice Lane while the claim was investigated.
The county hired ServPro in November to test and restore the office as well as an IT office that shares the same vent. Both were quarantined for inspection, which revealed no mold spores but small amounts of two different mold species in the detectives’ office and one in the IT office.
Both rooms were tested as part of the recent study. In her report, Stanley wrote spore counts indoors should typically be about 30 to 80 percent of the spore counts outside the building. Hayes Microbial found a spore count of 1,054 outside the Operations Center. The special investigators’ office and IT offices had counts of 40 and 80, respectively. The records and human resources offices had the highest spore counts of the 22 indoor areas tested, with tallies of 173 and 119, respectively.
The Sheriff’s Office has used the 35,000-square-foot facility at 901 E. Moody Blvd. as its main headquarter since relocating there in November 2015.