Toxic Mold Response Team News Alert: New Standards and Reference Guide for Mold Remediation

As our regular readers know, there are no federal or state statutory requirements or regulations concerning mold remediation and precious little in the way of guidelines. However, in December 2003, the Institute of Inspection, Cleaning and Restoration Certification ("IICRC") published standards and a reference guide for mold remediation in residential, institutional and commercial buildings. The IICRC is a non-profit certification body based in Vancouver, Washington. It was founded in 1972 to establish and monitor educational programs and standards for the inspection, cleaning and restoration services industries. Their standards and reference guide are the result of a collaborative effort by remediation contractors, microbiologists and other scientists, government and public health professionals, industrial hygienists and others. They are intended for use by property owners/managers, environmental consultants, industrial hygienists, insurance companies and others involved in investigating mold complaints, writing remediation specifications and protocols and managing remediation projects.

There are no agreed-upon threshold exposure limits that allegedly constitute a health concern for building occupants or remediation contractors, and the IICRC did not attempt to establish numerical mold contamination action levels. Rather, the standards descriptively define three levels of mold contamination conditions and provide guidance which can assist in determining criteria that trigger the need for remediation or which confirm remediation success.