Mold blasters restore Pascal's Manale

It took weeks for most people to rid their homes and businesses of the toxic mold that followed the floodwaters of Hurricane Katrina. For Pascal's Manale owner Bob DeFelice, it took one day.

Last Tuesday, a red and yellow circus tent swallowed the legendary New Orleans restaurant. Gas-filled tubes snaked through the building and filled all 6,200 square feet with chlorine dioxide, killing every organism inside.

To get rid of the green and black fungus that wormed its way inside the wood beams of the 92-year-old landmark, DeFelice brought in the team that scrubbed clean the buildings in Washington, D.C., after the 2001 anthrax attacks.

"My other option was to tear out the walls to get to the affected areas and then manually scrub and clean everything," DeFelice said. "It would have taken eight to 14 days. But when these guys are done there will be nothing left alive in there and it will have only taken one day."

DeFelice enlisted the crew from Sabre Technical Services, a decontamination service based in Albany, N.Y. STS created a method to sterilize entire structures using a chlorine dioxide fumigant.

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Magic Mold Remover (3:12)

CNN's Rusty Dornin takes a look at a technique being used to remove mold in New Orleans. (November 20)

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Quick Bites

It's a gas, gas, gas

By Brett Anderson
Staff writer

Before deciding who was going to rid his flood-ravaged restaurant of mold, Pascal's Manale co-owner Bob DeFelice did his homework.

He visited one local home that had been fumigated by Sabre Technical Services. He liked what he saw. "Then I went and observed two other gassings," DeFelice said. "After that, that's when we decided to use these people."

He also decided to turn his mold removal into a party last Tuesday, cooking up batches of the restaurant's signature barbecue shrimp outside Pascal's Manale as Sabre went to work.

The company, which falls under the umbrella of former New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani's Giuliani Partners, employed the same technique on Manale's as it did fumigating government buildings hit by anthrax attacks in 2001.

The relatively quick process -- it took only one day -- means Manale's will be able to reopen at its original location even sooner. The tent that covered the restaurant Tuesday was gone by Wednesday.

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DETOX TENT

New York decontamination firm brings its unique mold-killing method to New Orleans

By Leslie Williams
Staff writer

In the pre-Katrina days, the sight of a huge tent covering every inch of a building usually meant the place was being treated for termites. In the post-Katrina era, it's more likely mold fumigation.

Sabre Technical Services, a New York company established in the spring of 2003 to serve the government's bioterrorism response needs, treated the second of two test homes in New Orleans' Broadmoor neighborhood Wednesday with the relatively new process. It plans to begin fumigating restaurants and churches in Metairie and New Orleans in weeks.

The company normally fumigates large industrial buildings with chlorine dioxide gas, said John Y. Mason, Sabre's president. The homes, both on Vincennes Place, were done to experiment with "scaling down the operation."

Owners of the homes had nothing but praise for the Environmental Protection Agency-approved process that uses chlorine dioxide gas to kill mold.

"The science sold the whole project," said William "Wes" Alden, who agreed to have his four-bedroom, four-bath home at 4170 Vincennes Place treated.

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Mold removal project is deemed a success

By CHRISTINE MARGIOTTA
Local News
THE POST-STAR

KINGSBURY -- Ceiling tiles once black with mold are now gleaming white -- a sure sign the fumigation of the Ames building on Dix Avenue earlier this week was a success.

Bio-ONE, the company that performed the fumigation, gave the official thumbs-up when it cut into some of the ceiling tiles and found the insides were bright white as well, said Karen Cavanagh, the company's chief operating officer.

The company blasted the building with chlorine dioxide gas Monday evening for about six hours to kill mold covering the building's inside. A giant black tarp fitted around the entire building prevented gas from escaping into the air.

Crews will remove the tarp Friday and are expected to leave the property by Saturday morning at the latest, she said.

Windsor Development plans to renovate the Ames building into a strip mall. The fumigation allowed Windsor to avoid demolishing the structure.

Bio-ONE normally handles bioterrorism decontamination, but is now looking to apply its methods for killing anthrax to more commercial uses, such as killing mold.

The success of the fumigation project in Kingsbury gave the go-ahead for Bio-ONE to seek out even more mold-killing projects to gain more experience and ultimately market their services on a national scale.

A Trace Atmospheric Gas Analyzer bus, one of two buses in the world owned by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, monitored the air around the building for any hazardous gas emissions during the fumigation. The bus was capable of detecting gases in the air in parts per quadrillion.

"No detectible parts per anything were found outside the perimeter of the building," Cavanagh said.

EPA officials could not be reached for comment.

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Expired contract stops anthrax cleanup of AMI building in Boca

Building owner, Bio-ONE officials in clash over deal

By Luis F. Perez
Staff Writer
June 10, 2005

The on-and-off anthrax cleanup of the former American Media Inc. building is off again.

This time, the delay stopped the company hired to decontaminate the first building in the country attacked with anthrax just weeks away from finishing the job.

Bio-ONE officials walked off the Boca Raton property on Broken Sound Boulevard after a May 31 contract deadline passed without an extension, once more clouding the future of the building in the Arvida Park of Commerce.

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When Mold Attacks...

Ames Fumigation Method Also Used to Kill Anthrax

By CHRISTINE MARGIOTTA
cmargiotta@poststar.com
Published on 6/8/2005

KINGSBURY — A battle against mold is brewing today beneath the giant black tarps covering the old Ames building.

What's killing the stubborn spores inside the abandoned Route 32 department store also happens to be a weapon of choice in the fight against bioterrorism.

Bio-ONE — the same company contracted by the U.S. government to contain and kill biological agents after 9/11 — is now using its disease-zapping methods to rid buildings of pesky parasites.

For buildings like the old Ames store, demolition isn't a smart choice because that releases any mold into the air, causing potential health and allergy problems for passers-by.

Instead, the same sealing and fumigating method Bio-ONE uses to kill anthrax will be used to kill the mold.

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Insurance Group Formed For Biochemical Terrorism Clean-ups

By Ralph Bivins
Contributing Editor

A group led by former New York City Mayor Rudy Giuliani has formed an alliance with the AIG Environmental insurance firm to provide insurance coverage for environmental clean-ups from acts of biochemical terrorism.

The new program is designed to give building owners protection from contamination arising from terrorism-related release of anthrax and other biological agents.

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Post office that handled anthrax set to reopen

By GEOFF MULVIHILL
Associated Press Writer

HAMILTON, N.J. — The post office here is set to reopen Monday, 3-1/2 years after it handled anthrax-laced letters sent to Tom Brokaw, two U.S. senators and the offices of the New York Post in attacks that further heightened the nation's insecurity in the weeks after 9/11.

On Friday, workers were putting finishing touches on the refurbished low-slung building, sprucing up the parking lot for a ceremony Sunday and preparing to shutter the temporary spaces where they have...

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