Mystery Pollutant Not Airborne, Tests Show

Test results indicated that an unknown pollutant that is causing employees at the Chamber of Commerce, Orange County Library and Friends of the Library Bookstore to become dizzy and nauseated is not airborne, researchers said Tuesday.

“We’ve run quite a series of tests,” said Kathy Jones, an industrial hygienist with Health Science Associates, a private research company in Los Alamitos. “All of our testing is coming up very clean.”

All three offices share the 26-year-old county-owned building at 363 Glenneyre St. Library employees were the first to experience a reaction last month. Volunteers at the bookstore sensed a similar feeling a week later. And the Chamber of Commerce closed Monday because of the nauseating fumes.

“You feel it more in your chest and your breathing, rather than smell,” said Barbara Alexander, a volunteer at the bookstore. “When you’re breathing, you feel it your nasal passages, and you feel it on your tongue kind of like metal.”

She said she would become sick after working at the bookstore for about an hour.

Scientific researchers are still investigating the source of the pollutants, said County Librarian John M. Adams, but the search has been inconclusive so far.

“Clearly, you have a problem, and nobody has a clue what it is,” Adams said. “As soon as we identify what the contaminant is, we will do whatever is necessary to eradicate it and make the building safe.”

Researchers have tested the air inside and outside the building, checking for bacteria, molds or fungi. They are awaiting pesticide results from carpet tests, but Jones said the preliminary results indicate that levels of pesticide are very low. The building was sprayed for fleas two years ago, but it is unlikely that the pesticide residue would remain in the carpet that long, Jones said.