Potentially hazardous mould found on Canadian warship
Frigate’s HVAC system ‘degraded’ after years of lack of maintenance
HALIFAX — Inadequate ventilation, poor maintenance and old equipment are being blamed for causing a buildup of potentially hazardous airborne mould aboard Canada’s most advanced warships, newly released Defence Department documents show.
An air quality assessment aboard HMCS Winnipeg found higher-thannormal levels of mould spores in three compartments while the frigate was sailing from Tokyo to Hawaii in July 2017, the department’s Directorate of Force Health Protection said.
The navy first learned of mould problems in its frigates in 2011 as the ships were being prepared for a thorough modernization process that concluded in 2016.
A report from March 2015 — prepared by the engineering firm Bronswerk and made public this week — found the frigates’ ventilation and air conditioning systems had “significantly degraded” over the years because of a lack of main- tenance, leaving the equipment “old and unsupportable.”
The findings are important because some sailors have long complained of health problems they say could be related to mould exposure while serving aboard Canada’s 12 Halifax-class frigates.
“It’s proof the navy was pretty much lying about keeping track and looking after the mould,” said Alan Doucette, a retired navy lieutenant who served aboard two destroyers in the early 2000s before he was medically released in 2012.
Doucette has filed a lawsuit against the federal government, alleging that his health was ruined by exposure to mould while serving on ships that had the same heating, ventilation and air conditioning systems as the frigates.
The military officer in charge of naval engineering says the warships’ mould problems have been fixed, and he insisted the health of sailors remains the navy’s top priority.
“Every single system that we have onboard has a maintenance routine associated with it (and) the HVAC system is no exception,” Commodore Simon Page said Friday.