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Local leaders going to drywall conference
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Oct 29, 2009 - 10:12:22 PM

 By MELODY JAMESON
mj@observernews.net

Equipped with two primary objectives, local leaders on Chinese drywall issues will be at the country’s first technical symposium on the subject next week.
Woody Nelson, founder of this area’s Chinese Drywall Coordinating Group (CDCG) as well as a SCC Community Association director, along with Roy Gluam, a CDCG member, will be taking part in the two-day event scheduled Thursday and Friday, November 5 and 6, in Tampa.
The Technical Symposium on Corrosive Drywall is being co-sponsored by the Florida Department of Health, the University of Florida’s Hinkley Center for Solid and Hazardous Waste Management, and the University of South Florida’s College of Public Health.  It is the first such conference to bring together researchers from federal and state agencies with knowledge on the various damaging aspects of the imported contaminated drywall that has sickened humans and destroyed home values across the country.  
The symposium’s full schedule involves discussions led by the Centers for Disease Control and the Consumer Product Safety Commission, as well as such state agencies as the Florida Department of Community Affairs, the Department of Environmental Protection and the Florida Fire Marshall.   Subjects to be covered include materials analysis, emissions testing, exposure and toxicology assessment, plus remediation practice and protocols.  Abstracts on these same topics by other scientists working on the problems also have been invited and are expected to be made available to conferees after the event.
The keynote speaker on Friday is to be Sen. Bill Nelson, Florida’s senior senator and an outspoken advocate for the thousands of Florida residents who unknowingly purchased homes earlier in this decade which contain the toxic drywall.  Nelson also has traveled to China to meet with its representatives for talks about the contaminated building materials heavily imported by American builders during the decade’s construction boom.
Nelson, the SCC CA director, and Gluam, plan to attend the various lectures and take part in all pertinent discussion groups in order to glean as much new information as possible to bring back to the community, Nelson said.   In addition, they will be alert to all opportunities to network with the growing body of specialists on aspects of the drywall toxicity and means of dealing with it.   The objective will be to get attention focused on the Sun City Center and Kings Point homes that have been adversely affected by the corrosive contamination in order to access all the help available, Nelson added.  “I also want to reach out to other Florida communities which have been affected as SCC has been in order to build a coalition,” he said.  The combined force of such a coalition would be “pretty strong,” the director asserted.
The CA director also noted that he would like to invite Sen. Nelson to visit and talk in the SCC area. He added he will be looking for a chance to issue that invitation to the senator and his aides at the conference.
He added that he expects a number of the attorneys and law firms now commencing litigation on behalf of homeowners whose properties have lost value or whose health has been affected by the imported drywall also to attend the symposium.  
Dozens of SCC and KP homes, particularly those built during the mid-part of this decade, have been affected by the contaminating drywall.  The chemical toxicity of the building material corrodes major components of a house such as central air conditioning systems, turns valuable jewelry black and causes or worsens human respiratory illnesses,
The symposium cost, totaling $600 for the two attendees, is being shared equally by the SCC CA and by the KP Federation.
Copyright 2009 Melody Jameson

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