Healthy Indoors Magazine - USA Edition

24 | December 2022 My past several columns developed an analytical procedure based on first-facts with continuing development validated by looping back to the first-facts for the pur- pose of keeping the evolving relationships from going "off the road" so to speak. In other words, the process has guardrails. There are specific types of information re- quired to create a wholeness to the body of information, and those types must relate to each other in ways that maintain the facts, the logic, and the intent of the position. This not an ad hoc method springing from my over-active imagination. It is based on the relational theory initiated by Erwin Schrödinger in 1947, formalized by Robert Rosen in the 1990s, with further develop- ment in A Guide to Systems Research (Ed- son et al, Springer 2017). Chapters 2 and 4 on the repeating "closed loop" concept (Holons) are by John Kineman at the Uni- versity of Colorado. Dr. Kineman is also a past president of the International Society of System Science (ISSS). In other words, this method of analysis has guardrails and can be used to create or defend guardrails of other systems. Upcoming Danger? The risks to S520 as a guardrail of the mold remediation industry come from both inside the mold remediation industry and from the consensus body itself. There are currently companies and associations which teach, train, and execute procedures spores sprouting into colonies of Condi- tion 3, which then reproduce by creating Condition 2. To remain as S520, any changes, wheth- er from public review or internally consid- erations, must maintain those established principles. Otherwise, an alternative set of procedures will swerve into something else that will not be S520. Keeping the title or voting the changes by the consensus body will not alter the fact that what previously defined S520 no longer exists. The identi- fy and purpose of S520 as written deter- mines what it is and how it is regardless of the title or the consensus body decision. I have an opinion about S520. But opin- ions by themselves cannot be discussed because they have no basis other than a stated belief of the one offering the opin- ion. All that's needed to counter it is anoth- er opinion, which can be displaced with yet another opinion. Nothing productive can be produced with just opinions. An opin- ion with supporting information, however, can be discussed and debated in an argu- ment or a conversation about the facts and whether the collection of facts fit together to form a defensible position. My opinion which follows will be supported with the reasons and the method of analysis. My reasoned opinion is that after the ANSI process of public review, the S520 is unlikely to survive as a guardrail of the mold remediation industry. My hope is that it will. But it won't. A s one of the authors of the original S520 in 2003, I consider it a guardrail in the mold remediation in- dustry. Guardrails serve two purposes at the same time. They are warnings and sometimes obstacles to pre- vent running off the safe path toward a specified goal to ensure success. Which also means that they define that path. Remove the guardrails and not only is there a risk of damage or even a catastrophe, but of losing the way to a desired outcome. A new out- come can be created but it will something different, even if the name stays the same. S520 was revised in 2008 as an ANSI accredited industry consensus standard and again in 2015. The document is cur- rently under revision and is anticipated to be released for public review shortly after the first of the year, perhaps by the time this column is published. The standard sets the context, purpose, and the rules for mold remediation, plus how to execute the rules and verification of compliance with the procedures. The S520 as a guardrail has two fundamental principles. One is for the purpose of ad- dressing mold contamination and the other is to prevent a recurrence. Paraphrasing: 1. Physically remove the presence of mold, whether as Condition 3 (growth) or Condition 2 (settled spores and fragments). 2. Identify and stop the source of mois- ture responsible for the germination of Can S520 as a Guardrail Survive ANSI Public Review?

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