Officials say mold at school decreased

CHESAPEAKE, Va. (WAVY) - A mold report for Great Bridge Primary School in Chesapeake has been released, showing a decrease in spore counts.

WAVY.com met with the man in charge of removing the mold, Eric McKee of McKee Environmental, who would not speak on camera. McKee said he uses detergent like Dawn Ultra Concentrated Dishwashing Liquid to wipe down mold, aggressively attacking the mold until there is no visible evidence of mold or mold odors.

Six-year-old Landon Miller spent three days at the Children's Hospital of the King's Daughters in September for breathing problems that his doctor says may have come from mold in Classroom 18 at Great Bridge.

Landon's family called WAVY.com because of a spore count report showing a lot of pink, denoting significantly higher spore counts than the outside air in nine classrooms including the one Landon was in.

Wednesday, McKee would not comment on camera because his client, Chesapeake Public Schools, told him not to, but off camera he showed WAVY.com his new environmental study showing no more pink, meaning no more high spore counts in the school.

All the spore levels are now in white, denoting a normal count, in all the classrooms which McKee said are completely clean. Landon's grandmother remains skeptical.

"How do we know what it means? How do we know the 187 or the 303 in the column is right? How do we know they shouldn't be zero to be safe?" Ronna Thomas said.

McKee's new air samples were taken Sept. 18-26, six days after WAVY.com started investigating and the dehumidifiers were delivered to the school only after WAVY's Sept. 12 report.

"I think if 10 On Your Side was not involved it would not have happened," Thomas said. "I think it pushed them in a direction to go in to have more samples done. If you had not reported this, nobody would have ever known."

McKee says we have no federal standards for mold levels because mold affects everyone differently. Landon was affected, severely, but other children may not be affected at all.

WAVY.com was not allowed in the classrooms, not allowed to talk to the principal and not allowed to talk to school officials.

Based on McKee's report, the numbers show very low levels of spore counts in the classrooms.