HGEA demands review
of tests on fumes

Maui County workers are
expressing concern about health effects

By Gary Kubota
Maui correspondent

WAILUKU >> Union officials plan to file a complaint with the state about mysterious fumes that forced the evacuation of some 80 Maui County employees from a county building in Wailuku.

Lee Matsui, senior agent for the Hawaii Government Employees Association, said the action is intended to get state occupational and health officials to review the testing done by INALAB on behalf of the county.

More than three weeks after the initial evacuation Feb. 20, county officials say they aren't sure what caused "burning eyes" in employees and at least one case of respiratory illness at the Kalana Pukui Building.

Employees said they were worried about possible long-term effects from the fumes. Two employees said one worker who visited the building recently still noticed the smell.

Matsui said the union wants to make sure everything has been done to find the cause of the problem and re-entering the building will not pose a health hazard to employees.

"We don't know what caused it. That's a lot of anxiety," Matsui said.

Some 80 employees met yesterday for more than three hours at a conference room at the Maui Arts & Cultural Center to receive more information and ask questions to county officials.

The meeting was closed to the news media.

Many who left the meeting said they still had questions that needed to be answered by the county before they were willing to return to the building, and said they weren't satisfied with the results of the meeting.

"It looks like a big run-around," said Mike Ramick, a county building inspector.

"Our question is, why did it take to weeks to evacuate the building?" he said. "They still haven't been able to tell us if it's okay to go back into the building."

Ramick said he suffered a sinus infection from the fumes.

County spokeswoman Karlynn Kawahara said INALAB initially found the chemical PDITC or 1, 1-phenylenediisothiocyanate in air tests on March 2. But she said the laboratory believes the chemical was in amounts too small to be the cause of the fumes.

Kawahara said INALAB plans more tests and the county is developing plans to monitor the air quality.

She said INALAB is still trying to find out the health effects of the chemical.

"At this time, we're still not planning to put employees in the building," Kawahara said.

As a result, Planning Department employees have been moved to Civil Defense offices, and workers with the Land Use and Codes Administration have been moved into offices at the David Trask Building.

Matsui said the samples were taken about two weeks after the initial problem occurred in the building and the cause might have disappeared during that period.

"So you may never know what caused it," he said. "I think there was a delay in reporting and acting on it."