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Moldy Courthouse Sickens Senator

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By KEITH MORELLI

kmorelli@tampatrib.com

Published: February 17, 2009

TAMPA - U.S. Sen. Bill Nelson toured the Sam M. Gibbons Federal Courthouse on Monday and the experience literally took his breath away.

The senator was responding to complaints from federal judges and employees who work in the 12-year-old building that shoddy construction has left them with leaking windows and roofs and that mold has taken hold.

The result: respiratory problems for employees and any other visitor who is sensitive to mold and mildew. Nelson himself said he was having respiratory trouble himself during and after the 45-minute tour.

"I'm beginning to clog up," Nelson said after walking through the top two floors with U.S. District Judge Elizabeth Kovachevich, who said she has stopped trials to escape moldy Courtroom 17 on the top floor.

"This is totally unacceptable," Nelson said, adding he has already called the General Services Administration to get something done.

"I am going to absolutely raise Cain," he said. "I am going to beat down their door and not move from their doorstep until we get some action."

The courthouse has been diagnosed with sick-building syndrome for the past decade, Kovachevich said. A woman who works in her office on the 17th floor has to go home occasionally after she suffers nosebleeds, she said.

The tour included more than a dozen spots where water damage was apparent, where rugs were pulled up and wood flooring was peeled back; where office waste baskets serve as small federal cisterns under dripping ceilings.

Last year, the GSA began an inspection of the $81 million glass and limestone building on Florida Avenue in downtown Tampa to determine the extent of the leak and mold problem.

In February 2008, Nelson said repairs were expected to take about two years. The first phase of the project has been completed, but negotiations between the GSA and the contractor, hired to fix leaks and scrub away mold, have hit a snag, said Bryan Gulley, spokesman for the senator.

Frustrated, the judges in the building called on Nelson to help them.

"There's no excuse for this," Nelson said, as he gazed at an exposed concrete floor from where the carpet was pulled because it gets wet every time it rains.

An environmental report in 2002 stated employees at the 363,000-square-foot building were three times more likely to have adult-onset asthma and other respiratory illnesses.

Additionally, courthouse employees reported nearly five times as many cases than average of sick-building syndrome - an illness with symptoms such as headaches, dizzy spells and sinus problems.

Reporter Keith Morelli can be reached at (813) 259-7760.

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