House of mould

>> A Kahnesatake woman takes on the feds over a serious reserve-wide issue

by KEN HECHTMAN

Karen Etienne is learning just how tough it is to fight city hall. Or, in the case of the Kahnesatake Mohawk mother of three, the federal government.

Her problems started in March 1997, about a week after she moved into her federally managed home with her husband Rodney Hill and their kids. The house, by her own admission, was a wreck, requiring extensive renovation in the two months before they moved in. But not long after they did, the spring run-off flooded her basement, made vulnerable by shoddy construction. "The foundation of the house wasn't great," she says. "There was sand coming up through the foundation."

More repairs were made, mostly financed by the federal department of Public Works and Government Services (PWGS) Canada. But the following spring, after the ice storm of 1998, the flooding was worse, and had far more serious consequences. A pipe had burst on Victoria Day weekend, and in the first week of June, the sump pump, which pumps water into their septic tank, broke down. The basement walls were soaked.

"That June, I noticed these lines on the walls of the basement. It was this black slimy stuff, with some fuzzy patches," she says. "Then I began wondering why [her eight-year-old son] Colton was getting all these nosebleeds."

She immediately called the Kahnesatake Health Centre and asked what the black slime and fuzz could be. She complained of headaches, nausea, nosebleeds, muscle and joint pains and a foul smell emanating from the basement. "I was told, 'This is mould. This is the bad one.'" On June 26, an inspection team from Health Canada showed up to take samples. They told Etienne they would be sending the sample to a lab in Nova Scotia to test for a mould called Stachybotrys atra (or chartarum). Stachybotrys atra is known to cause severe, flu-like symptoms in those exposed to it, including nausea, headaches, chronic nosebleeds, aches and pains, loss of balance and memory, vomiting and diarrhea. More worryingly, it may cause death through pulmonary bleeding in infants.

In the meantime, the mouldy area was sprayed with Aerogerm, a fruity-smelling chemical inspectors said would kill the mould. It didn't. Instead, Etienne says, it fed the mould, making the problem even worse. "All it did was re-wet the mould and make it grow more. It was making me even more sick." With band election fever running through the reserve, she says no one had time to pay attention to her problem.

A cleaning crew from Miron Air in nearby Two Mountains finally showed up and decontaminated the basement between August 11 and 13. Etienne and her family were not relocated during the process. Finally, she thought, her problems were over. They weren't. On September 1, she received a letter from the Kahnesatake Health Centre confirming the presence of Stachybotrys atra in her home. The next day she was told that her children's mobile-trailer school was widely infected with the mould. The entire school had to be replaced, and classes were cancelled for three weeks.

Mouldy reserve

By December 1998, Etienne began keeping a log of her children's nosebleeds and headaches, which were occurring almost daily. Over the winter she saw several Montreal doctors, who recommend she move. By June 1999 she and her family (she had since separated from her husband) moved into her mother's house permanently, where they still live. Shortly after they left, the Kahnesatake Orihwa'shon:a Development Corporation (KODC) moved in, after extensive renovations. Paul Nicholas, KODC's president, claims the renovations were necessary to convert the house into an office. "We found that the mould problem wasn't that bad," he says. "We painted over it and had some work done by the federal government. Mould is a big problem, but I can't tell you how widespread it is."

In fact, the mould problem infecting the reserve is by no means limited to Etienne's former home and the school. "Lots of the homes have been infected," says Shirlean Nelson, a community health rep. She says a total of 265 homes "have been inspected and there's a hell of a lot of infection." She has the figures: right now, 52 have high levels of infection, 102 are moderate, 64 low and 42 have none. A total of 64 band homes have been decontaminated. For the federally run homes, 59 were inspected, and 11 had high levels of infection, 24 had moderate, 17 had low and only seven had none. "Homeowners need to be educated in what they need to avoid," she says. High levels of humidity--like flooding--need to be avoided, and fans should be installed to increase ventilation. Etienne says there were no fans in her home.

The reserve's Grand Chief, James Gabriel, is aware of the problem and supports Etienne's fight. "It is an ongoing problem but it's not proceeding at a pace as rapidly as we'd like to see, obviously," he says. "About a year ago we conducted large-scale blood sampling on those exposed to mould. Now we can actually do tests so we can go back and determine if some kids were exposed to mould and determine what the effects will be."

Another chief, Steven Bonspille, who holds the band council's Health portfolio, among others, also voices concern. "It's a very big problem," Bonspille says. "We're supporting her in her claim against the federal government. The funds the federal government are giving us to maintain these homes and to make them habitable are inadequate." Etienne also has the written support of Matthew Coon Come, the National Chief of the Assembly of First Nations.

Fight for a settlement

Etienne has since started a lawsuit against the federal Department of Indian Affairs and Northern Development (DIAND) for compensation for ill health, the cost of repairs and "loss of time." She says she has been pressuring DIAND's senior negotiator, Walter Walling, for a settlement for years, and he has been consistently stalling her. Contacted at his Quebec City office, Walling declined comment, saying the issue was still before the courts.

In her fight against the feds, Etienne claims she has been used as a pawn, and the lawyers have tried, without success, to turn her soon-to-be-ex-husband against her. But she has a smoking gun that she hopes will strengthen her cause: in a May, 2000 report on the clean-up process by Claude Mainville of Natur'Air-Kiwatin, a respected air-quality analysis corporation, several serious shortcomings were pointed out. The report states, "It was inappropriate to keep this family in this house after June 26 [1998]. It was not a professional decontamination work with the people still in the house. The decontamination was incomplete as we can see by the last report (Institut Armand-Frappier, May 1999)." The last refers to a Université du Québec scientific research institute study commissioned by DIAND as the family was preparing to leave the house for good.

Still, Etienne is hoping for some sort of resolution before the winter. "I just want this to be over," she says. But she isn't quite ready to go without a fight. "I'm going to be showing the [seven band] chiefs my evidence so we can clarify everything. I have nothing to hide. There will be a meeting between us and Walling and all the lawyers soon. I hope we can settle this once and for all."