Chemical alarms officials
By Tom Harshbarger
Daily Forty-Niner
The journalism department at Cal State
Long Beach got a scare Wednesday when a strong, orange-like odor permeated
the basement of the Social Science/Public Affairs Building, causing some
faculty and students to become ill.
Wayne Kelly, professor of photojournalism,
was the first to notice the smell and contact health and safety personnel.
"I began to get short of breath and my
eyes began to water," Kelly said. "My nose is still running."
The mystery odor turned out to be a liquid
cleaner called Citrikleen, which was used to clean hydraulic fluid that
leaked from the building's elevator into the subbasement, said Richard
Johnson, associate director of environmental health and safety for Safety
and Risk Management.
Johnson and his crew laid absorbent pads
over the fluid and placed huge 4-by-4-foot fans in the doorways to combat
the fumes. Johnson said the lack of ventilation out of the subbasement
contributed to the fumes' high concentration.
Citrikleen is a corrosive liquid, according
to its Material Safety Data Sheet, required for all chemicals by the Occupational
Safety and Health Administration. If its air distribution exceeds three
parts per million, according to the data sheet, it is unsafe. Johnson's
air monitor measured the fumes at 107 parts per million just outside of
the door leading to the subbasement.
The fumes gave one student "pretty bad"
chest pains. No one was seriously injured, and most saw the incident as
a minor inconvenience.
"I walked in the building, and it smelled
like a dead body," said Rachelle Imson, a sophomore journalism major. |
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