58 



AppemdU U 



Labormtory FtciUtic* H*vr Limited 



Agencies' Productivity and Sclentiflc 



Capabilitiea 



space. A recent engineering analysis of the building found several 

 fundamental and interrelated problems, including the following: (1) the air 

 conditioning system recirculates air through the corridors; (2) the 

 building's air system tends to distribute rather than contain fumes and/or 

 smoke; (3) the building's outside air intakes are too close to its exhaust 

 stacks, hence exhausted air may be recirculated into the laboratory; and 

 (4) area exhaust capacity in the building's laboratories and the venting of 

 fiunes from stored chemicals are inadequate or nonexistent. The design of 

 the bioscience building's hvac system does not conform with ars' 

 requirement that its laboratories have at least eight air exchanges per hour 

 with no recirculation of the air. This requirement is derived from the 

 American Society of Heating, Refrigerating, and Air Conditioning 

 Engineers standards for laboratories.' In response to the health problems, 

 BAHC has given higher pnority to renovating the bioscience building's hvac 

 system within its modernization program by requesting design funding for 

 fiscal year 1995 to be followed by a renovation funding request in fiscal 

 year 1996. 



At epa's Gulf Breeze facility, the Marine Environment Assessment 

 Laboratory's newly renovated ventilating system had inadequate 

 air-handling capacity, enabling mold and fungus to grow in the duct work. 

 Some researchers experienced severe allergic reactions to the 

 nticroorganisms, and research samples were contaminated by spores 

 entering the laboratory through the ventilating system. Researchers were 

 relocated to temporary space for 9 months while the ventilating system 

 was upgraded. However, a research manager estimated that researchers in 

 his branch lost 6 months to 1 year on their research projects because of 

 the disruption and the minimal facilities available in the temporary space. 

 At BAKC, several researchers told us that drafty window frames have 

 caused laboratory rooms to be too cold, too hot, and/or too humid. In 

 some cases, researchers' inability to control temperature and humidity 

 caused inaccurate research results or equipment failure. For example, 

 researchers' inability to control humidity affected an experiment designed 

 to measure the food intake of rats because the food absorbed excessive 

 moisture, leading to inaccurate data. 



Electncal power outages have interrupted, and sometimes even ruined, 

 scientific experiments, barc researchers cited several examples of the 

 effect of power failures and inadequate emergency backup equipment, 

 including outages that (1) destroyed controlled experiments mvestigating 

 animals' feeding patterns and (2) lasted sufficiently long enough in one 



'These standards ri-t-oniniend that the veriulauim systriti for chemical and biological laboralijnes 

 ducharge all exhaust air to the outdoonj without recirculaung iL The standards also provide a table for 

 detrrmininfl liie nuniniiini niimlHT of ajr chanKes per hour, depending on the specific research 

 performed. 



