Mad in Mahopac

Hundreds of people attended the forum at the Mahopac Middle School. Eric Gross People are frightened, upset, and concerned.

Reports of Mahopac Middle School children experiencing constant headaches, bloody noses, and nausea surfaced over and over again when 500 people crowded into the school’s gymnasium last week for a meeting that centered on the school’s air quality.

In the past few weeks, students have been dismissed on several occasions as a result of fumes infiltrating the sprawling building on Baldwin Place Road adjacent to Mahopac High School.

School officials believe the problem centers on diesel fumes from idling buses, and, as a result, have moved the building’s drop-off point 200 feet away from the building.

However, when teachers attending the meeting reported a “blue haze” in several of the classrooms, members in the audience blamed the children’s ailments on more than bus fumes.

Karen Blefgan said her daughter comes home from school every day with a “severe migraine headache. She goes to bed and is now wearing a heart monitor as a result of experiencing heart palpitations. She is being seen by a neurologist. I don’t know if her condition is related to the air problems, but it seems strange that her illness began when the air crisis was reported.”

Another parent, Chris Verini, said he took his son to an allergist to determine what was causing his lethargy.

Dawn Lupinacci said her daughter has been experiencing headaches and was being treated for Lyme disease: “I wonder if this is the cause of her discomfort, or is it the bad air she is breathing in everyday here at school.”

Diane Browning told a similar story of her son experiencing headaches and coming home from school every day and taking a nap: “This all began last fall when he returned to school. It seems awfully suspicious.”

A number of irate and emotional parents demanded that the school be closed until the problem is identified and remedied.

Superintendent Thomas Manko said the school would remain open with its air quality being constantly monitored: “The Putnam Health Department and our private consultant have been regularly taking air samples, with no elevations of carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, or volatile organic compounds which are bi-products of diesel combustion being reported.”

A number of parents and teachers charged the school’s administration with neglect for not addressing the air quality issues earlier, since the Mahopac Teachers representative at the middle school, Brian Cauthers, told the audience that similar events had been documented since 2005.

Cauthers refused to discuss his allegations with the COURIeR at the conclusion of the four-hour long meeting last week.

Others in attendance commended Manko for tackling the problem headon. One man said: “The guy just got here in July and he is taking the problem seriously.”

Manko admitted his phone hadn’t stopped ringing, with parents and community members who were not only concerned about the problem but “good people in our community who want to help. A volunteer team has been formed consisting of professionals in the heating and air conditioning field as well as builders, contractors, and engineers who have begun studying the problem. We intend to visit every nook and cranny in that vast building and, with the assistance of an air-monitoring technician who will be stationed in the building until the problem is solved, we will identify the culprit.”

A veteran teacher who requested anonymity put it this way: “The past is the past. Screw-ups may have occurred. We have to worry about the present and future. We are all frightened. Something has to give because it can’t go on this way any longer.”

Last Friday, another incident was reported at the middle school when occupants of three classrooms reported smelling the odor of burning wood. The classes were relocated to other sections of the school and Manko said air quality tests were immediately taken.

On Monday afternoon, the superintendent reported that Health Department findings were all acceptable.

Manko said the district will remain vigilant and “stay the course by keeping an industrial hygienist on staff daily. Should another event occur, the students and faculty will be relocated and the hygienist will do a ‘Johnny-on-the-spot’ air assessment. The results will be shared immediately with our school physician, who will interpret them and determine if the rooms are safe to re-occupy.”

No reason was determined for the burning wood odor.