Epidemiologic Notes and Reports
Employee Illness from Underground Gas and Oil Contamination --
Idaho
The National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health
(NIOSH)
recently completed an evaluation of an office building in Boise,
Idaho, in which workers were experiencing symptoms of headache and
nausea related to intermittent noxious odors (1). The cause of the
problem was gasoline vapors entering the building from an
underground
aquifer contaminated with petroleum products leaking from a nearby
oil
storage tank.
The affected employees worked in the basement of a five-story
medical office building and had been experiencing the
symptoms--which
in one case included vomiting--intermittently for 10 months. The
symptoms were occasionally associated with a petroleum odor that
the
NIOSH investigator found coming through cracks in the floor and the
joints at which the floor met the foundation and the support
pillars
connected to the floor. Laboratory analysis confirmed the source
of
the odor as gasoline. The vapor concentrations at the cracks and
inside one wall were above the lower explosive limit for gasoline
of
14,000 ppm, and the vapor concentrations in the rooms ranged up to
280
ppm.
To determine the source of the contamination, six test holes
were
drilled around the building, A water sample from one of these
holes
had petroleum products floating on the surface. An evaluation has
determined a large gas and oil tank farm, located two blocks from
the
building, is the source of the water table contaminants.
Based on recommendations by the NIOSH investigator, immediate
steps were taken to correct the hazards. All accessible cracks and
joints have been sealed, and the building ventilation system has
been
adjusted to pressurize the building relative to the outside air.
Since these corrections were made, petroleum-product vapors are no
longer detectable, and the employees' symptoms have ceased.
Reported by the Hazard Evaluations and Technical Assistance Br, Div
of
Surveillance, Hazard Evaluations, and Field Studies, NIOSH Region
X,
CDC.
Editorial Note
Editorial Note: The employees' symptoms are consistent with the
gasoline vapor concentrations found in the building and with the
higher concentrations that probably existed intermittently in the
past.
NIOSH has evaluated or is currently evaluating over 100
complaints
of various symptoms among office employees. Although a large
majority
of these evaluations have found that the complaints derive from
inadequate office ventilation, occasionally symptoms can be linked
to
substances measured in the environment, e.g., fibrous glass (2),
fumes
from spirit duplicators (3), and emissions from urea-formaldehyde
foam
insulation (4). In the Idaho situation, prompt correction was
required to prevent a possible explosion of gasoline vapors.
Although
such situations are unusual, building occupants in areas near
petroleum storage facilities (including gasoline service stations)
should be alert to the possibility of environmental
contamination--particularly of the water table by petroleum
products.
References
Apol A. Health hazard evaluation--Boise, Idaho. Cincinnati:
National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health, 1982.
(Report no. HETA 82-062-1077).
Tharr D. Health hazard evaluation--Schenectady, New York.
Cincinnati: National Institute for Occupational Safety and
Health,
1980. (Report no. TA 80-080).
Apol A. Health hazard evaluation--Everett, Washington.
Cincinnati: National Institute for Occupational Safety and
Health,
1980. (Report no. TA 80-032).
Gunter, B. Health hazard evaluation--East Helena, Montana.
Cincinnati: National Institute for Occupational Safety and
Health,
1981. (Report no. HETA 81-108-883).
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