‘Noxious’ odor causes concern

By Precious Kenney

The Scene staff

Students, faculty and staff have been complaining of an intermittent odor in classrooms and hallways of the West Wing at Forest Park in recent months.

People compare it to the smell of diesel, car exhaust or spray paint, leading some to believe it’s coming from the automotive technology department on the lower level.

The odor has been blamed for dizziness and nausea. Two adjunct faculty members in art have canceled classes, and one of them, Aleta Lanier, is quitting because of it.

“(The odor) happens every week,” said Lanier, who teaches figure drawing and serves as director of the Gallery of Contemporary Art on campus.

“It happened today (Oct. 23). My students were more or less like, ‘Yeah, I smell it,’ and occasionally they want to leave, and I don’t stop them because I’m not going to make somebody stand in here and breathe exhaust fumes.”

Lanier said she has experienced headaches and throat irritation after spending the day in her West Wing classroom. Her doors must be kept closed because nude models are present.

Officials moved Lanier’s classes to the theater building last month because of complaints about the odor. But she doesn’t like being isolated from the rest of the art department. She submitted her notice on Nov. 13 to leave at the end of fall semester.

“I just don’t want to be in this situation where I show up to teach (in the spring) and there’s still fumes, and no one has done anything and I have to go through this again,” she said. “It’s been really stressful.

“What makes me really mad is that there are people who can’t afford to leave who are left dealing with this. It’s mind-blowing.”

‘Everyone is listening’

Faculty members and staff in the art department complained about the odor in September to Program Coordinator Norleen Nosri, who teaches in the art annex. She likened it to hanging out at a gas station.

Nosri went to Office Depot and bought standard air purifiers with air-quality monitors for classrooms and offices, but she’s been pushing for installation of industrial-grade equipment.

“Everyone is listening,” Nosri said. “We have to be diplomatic. When teachers are happy, then the students are happy.”

Faculty members aren’t the only employees complaining. A dean, who described the odor as “noxious,” evacuated his office and several others on the third floor of West Wing at the end of August due to safety concerns.

“It smells,” said James Munden, dean of the science, technology, engineering, mathematics and business division. “It’s not like a burning smell, like stuff melting. It’s more like an organic fume.”

Munden has worked at Forest Park for 13 years. He’s been in his current office for five years.

Munden had never smelled the odor before this summer. But since that time, he’s heard people talk about it at campus meetings.

In some cases, the odor can be smelled in one spot but not a few feet away.

“There’s no pattern,” Munden said. “There’s no rhyme or reason to it.”

Some people feel that the odor is stronger during the day and weaker on Fridays, when automotive technology classes aren’t in session.

Auto tech weighs in

Joe Jackson, chair of the automotive technology department, said he has been contacted about an odor in the West Wing several times this semester, and in some cases, he has taken responsibility.

“They started (an) old car, and it didn’t have an exhaust hose on it, and it was really stinky,” he said. “So that was one instance where we were guilty.

“But aside from that, you know, there’s been times where it’s in the middle of the day, when there’s absolutely nothing going on, and there’s complaints about odor.

“Of course, we’re the biggest footprint down here (on the lower level) that is the likely culprit for it, but I think there have been some other theories and some other sources that have been overlooked.”

Jackson said he went up to the fourth floor of West Wing after one complaint, and he thought it smelled like paint. He noted that the automotive technology department doesn’t do body work or spray paint.

Jackson said students hook car exhausts to hoses that are supposed to send carbon monoxide outside. Absorbent mats soak up any fuel that might spill before they’re discarded.

“We live in this environment,” Jackson said. “We may be a little more accustomed to it, so somebody that is super sensitive, maybe they are irritated by that way more, like 10,000 times more, than we are.

“We’re kind of used to it, but we’ve just been extra cautious and taking every possible measure to make sure we collect any harmful fumes.”

STLCC recently broke ground on a new Transportation Center on the Forest Park campus. It’s expected to open in the fall of 2025 and house the automotive technology and diesel technology departments.

College conducts tests

Munden said he reported the odor in West Wing by email to the Forest Park facilities department when he evacuated offices in late August and that staff responded immediately.

Officials turned the matter over to Brad Ziegler, STLCC environmental health and safety manager, who began an investigation.

“We’re trying to lock down and find a cause for what could be causing a particular odor and trying to identify what it is,” he said in an Oct. 31 interview with The Scene.

“There’s been a couple of instances (of the odor being reported), and this has been going back to, I believe, early September. In a couple of those instances, we were able to identify that there was a problem.

“For example, there was a diesel-powered lift that was idling near the air intake out in the quad. And in another case, we had an exhaust issue in the auto tech program. But those were very isolated issues where we were able to identify what happened.”

Ziegler said he installed CO2 monitors in West Wing classrooms and offices, but they haven’t detected carbon monoxide. He also has been testing the air for VOCs (volatile organic compounds) and consulting with experts to narrow down possible sources.

“Testing results will come back with something concrete, and then we go from there,” Ziegler said. “Just because we get lab results back isn’t going to tell us where the source is, right? So if we get a result that comes back and says we’ve got a certain substance in the air, then we’ve got to backtrack and go ‘OK, where could that substance be? How is it getting into the air? How is it coming into the building or where is that? Where is the source of it?’

“So, just because I get results from the lab won’t complete the investigation. It’s like a needle in a haystack.”

Ziegler told a reporter that the college as expecting is test results on Nov. 10, but he couldn’t be reached by phone or email before press time on Nov. 15.

Secretary keeps records

The employee who has become the go-to person for issues related to the odor is art secretary Amanda Nutter, whose office is on the West Wing’s fourth floor. She began keeping records on Sept. 11, when she first smelled an odor.

“It smelled like I was laying behind a car that was running, like I had my face right in a muffler,” Nutter said. “And it was overwhelming, and I smelled it, and I immediately got this pounding migraine, and I got up to go check on it, and I immediately had two teachers come in (my office) saying ‘Hey, you need to call this in.’”

Nutter became alarmed and ran to check on people in classrooms down the hall. Other faculty members told her the odor was a regular occurrence, and they hadn’t given it much thought.

An air-quality monitor in Nutter’s office turned red, signaling impurities in the air, while a reporter was present on Oct. 11. Nutter has kept track of incidents, such as students leaving school and faculty members canceling classes or ending them early due to migraines, sore throats or respiratory issues.

“Sometimes it’s different smells,” Nutter said. “We’re assuming it’s coming from automotive because it either smells like car exhaust or gasoline.”

Jessica DeCuir, an adjunct faculty member in art, started smelling the odor this summer in her classroom on the West Wing’s fourth floor. It worsened in September, prompting her to let students leave early on multiple occasions.

DeCuir compared the odor in the beginning to diesel, then spray paint. She said windows can’t be opened in art classrooms, and due to poor ventilation, students and faculty are prohibited from using aerosol sprays.

Like Ziegler, DeCuir mentioned that a diesel-powered lift in the quad had caused an odor in classrooms at one point. The lift, which had been used by maintenance workers, apparently was left idling for an extended period.

But moving the lift didn’t solve the problem, according to DeCuir.

“When it’s a bad day, I feel like I’m sitting in a garage, and the car is running,” she said. “And my students have said as much, and I don’t want to lose any students because of the situation.

“I don’t want to feel ill anymore. I don’t want my colleagues to feel ill. I don’t think we get paid enough to be putting up with this, to be honest with you, and I don’t think the students deserve it. So my whole thing is safety first.”