AYUMI NAKANISHI / ANAKANISHI@STARBULLETIN.COM Mold experts at the Hilton Hawaiian Village yesterday showed a sample of a type of mold under a microscope.

2 varieties of mold
identified at Hilton

One type is potentially nastier than
the other, according to experts

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By Tim Ruel
truel@starbulletin.com

Two types of mold -- one potentially nastier than the other -- have been identified in larger-than-normal concentrations at Hilton Hawaiian Village, officials said yesterday.

Mold investigators hired by Waikiki's largest hotel said they found evidence of Eurotium mold in rooms at the now-closed 453-room Kalia Tower. The investigators have also found Cladosporium mold in corridors at the 264-room Lagoon Tower. The rooms at the Lagoon Tower and other towers appear to have normal amounts of mold.

Mold spores are commonplace and continually pass through the air, but can grow to unhealthy levels in buildings that have improper air systems.

The exact species of either mold genus has yet to be pinpointed.

Eurotium mold is closely related to Aspergillus mold, which is potentially toxic, said Ken Beal, executive vice president of air quality firm MoldPro International LLC in Kailua.

"Aspergillus can be one of the nastier ones," Beal said, citing research materials from Environmental Microbiology Laboratory Inc. of Daly City, Calif.

Basically, the same mold organism can be Eurotium in one part of its life cycle and Aspergillus in the other, said George Wong, a University of Hawaii associate professor who specializes in fungi.

The Kalia Tower, where the Eurotium mold was discovered, was recently built by Hilton for $95 million and opened in May 2001. A Hilton housekeeper discovered mold in a room in June of this year.

AYUMI NAKANISHI / ANAKANISHI@STARBULLETIN.COM Officials addressing the Hilton Hawaiian Village's mold problem yesterday were, from left, Bryan K. Ligman, W. Elliott Horner and Hilton executive Peter Schall.

The Eurotium mold has mainly been found on room furniture, particularly the bottoms of drawers, and would not have been noticed by guests. The hotel began closing down individual rooms in the Kalia Tower as it discovered more mold.

As of a week ago, more than 200 rooms had been cleared of people, said Peter Schall, senior vice president and managing director of Hilton Hawaiian Village. Hilton went public with the mold on Wednesday, and said it had emptied all 453 guest rooms at the tower. It's not clear exactly how many rooms have mold, since Hilton has not yet checked all rooms, Schall said.

Allergic reactions to mold have been documented in other buildings that have had similar levels of mold as Kalia Tower, said Dr. Joseph Q. Jarvis, an occupational and environmental health consultant who will arrive in Honolulu in a week to examine employees.

Cladosporium, found in the corridors of the Lagoon Tower, is a common type of building mold, and can cause a variety of allergic reactions in people who have asthma or hay fever, or who have strong allergies, Beal said. Hilton has not closed off any parts of the Lagoon Tower, which was recently renovated and reopened last year as the Hilton Grand Vacations Club time-share resort.

Cladosporium and Aspergillus were among the types of molds found in a two-story Maui building where 80 county employees were evacuated last year because of concerns over health. Cleaning up cost $450,000, including the removal of mold from ceilings and the installation of a new air-conditioning system.

High humidity appears to be the cause of the Kalia Tower's mold problem, said W. Elliott Horner, microbial laboratory director for Atlanta-based Air Quality Sciences Inc., which was hired by Hilton to investigate the mold. The firm's investigators arrived in Waikiki on Saturday and knew almost immediately what type of mold they were dealing with, but the experts did not know how widespread the mold was.

The cause of the high humidity is still unknown, said Bryan K. Ligman, director of the building consulting national office for Air Quality Sciences. It's not clear how long the inquiry will take.

To fix the problem, Hilton will first need to tackle the cause of the moisture, then see if it can salvage the affected furniture, Horner said.

Hilton's workers would be more at risk than guests for mold-related disease, which could potentially qualify for workers' compensation, said Jarvis. About 50 employees regularly work in Kalia Tower's guest rooms.

Hilton is not the only hotel in Waikiki to open a new million-dollar tower and find that it had a mold problem. Next door, the Hale Koa Hotel opened its new 396-room Maile Tower in 1995 and almost immediately had mold trouble. Regular housekeeping didn't solve the problem, and mildew was starting to smell in the rooms.

A forensic expert was brought in and blamed the mold on poor construction and design.

The hotel spent about $5.5 million to fix the problem and reached a settlement with builders and designers. The general contractor, Hawaiian Dredging Construction Co., is the same firm that was general contractor for Hilton's Kalia Tower. Hawaiian Dredging, a major local construction firm, has blamed the Hale Koa's problems on bad design.