Mold, moisture problems dog Tisbury Police Department building

Fans, filters and dehumidifiers are the latest addition to the police department building.

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Photo by Michael Cummo

A moisture problem at the Tisbury Police Department has had professional inspectors in and out of the building testing for mold and other structural issues over the course of two weeks.

“There’s mold in the police station, there’s leaky roofs, there’s condensation,” Tisbury health agent Tom Pachico said Wednesday. “We’ve got to deal with the moisture problem, obviously, and come up with a game plan about what we’re going to do about it.”

He said Tommy Mello, Department of Public Works assistant director, contacted him a little over a week ago and said there was a complaint from the police department about a mold smell.

“I said well, if it smells like mold, it’s mold; you need to call a professional service to come in and evaluate and see what the cause is and what the cure is,” he said. “I’m not a mold expert, and I don’t have the testing equipment for how much or what kind, so they had the people come in and take a look at it and see what the cause was. And then they work with a group that does air testing to see what the concentration of it is, and we’ll go from there.”

He said he hadn’t received the results of that testing, but didn’t believe it required drastic measures like a building evacuation.

“Mold is a pain to deal with,” he said. “Is it a health threat? I don’t think so, at this point, but mold’s never really a healthy thing, so we’re going to try to correct the problem.”

There is no official plan to address the problems yet. Mr. Pachico has received a list of recommendations from ServPro, a residential and commercial restoration and cleaning service who inspected the department. Mr. Pachico said town administrator Jay Grande is working with an insurance adjuster to come up with a strategy and funding.

On Wednesday, Mr. Grande could shed little light on the issues. He said he had not received an official complaint on any mold problem, and referred questions to the board of health.

“The only thing we’re doing is we have an insurance adjuster dealing with an issue related to damage from rainfall,” he said.

Tisbury Police officials have had nothing to say about the mold issue.