The Ivan Hilton Science Building at New Mexico Highlands University. (Courtesy photo by Michael Remke)
New Mexico Highlands University faculty and staff say they are still assessing work safety issues after learning earlier this week that the federal government had abruptly ended an evaluation of health hazards on campus.
Last October, workers at the university in Las Vegas, N.M. asked the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health (NIOSH) to conduct a health hazard evaluation centered on the Ivan Hilton Science Building, which had closed a month earlier due to improperly stored chemicals. Their unions and school administrators worked together to invite the agency on campus, and investigators interviewed many people, union officials say.
Earlier this week, NIOSH informed the American Federation of Teachers New Mexico that it had ended the evaluation because of cuts by the so-called Department of Government Efficiency, President Whitney Holland told Source NM in an interview.
NIOSH’s website states, “Due to the reduction in force across NIOSH, no new health hazard evaluation requests can be accepted.”
Highlands faculty and staff still need medical evaluations, industrial hygiene exposure assessments and behavioral health support, Holland said.
“This truly is a regional issue for Northern New Mexico, and the federal government’s abrupt cancellation of these critical supports jeopardizes our communities’ wellbeing in both the short- and long-term,” she said.
Emails and voicemails seeking comment from NIOSH and Highlands administrators had not been returned as of Thursday morning.
Dr. Kathy Jenkins, a professor of exercise physiology and Faculty and Staff Association president, told Source NM the evaluation’s final report was completed in March and she expected it to reach her soon.
“To find out last week that the case was closed and it doesn’t look like there’s any opportunity to reopen it, was a little devastating,” Jenkins said.
Marty Lujan, a longtime custodian at Highlands who often cleaned the science building, died last fall. His official cause of death is not yet determined, but union officials say he showed signs of chemical exposure.
The science building’s closure, the relocation of classrooms and Lujan’s death caused extreme stress for many people on campus, Michael Remke, an assistant professor in the school’s Department of Forestry, told Source NM.
If the evaluation had been completed, NIOSH would have offered free in-person counseling to faculty, staff and students, he said. The university offered five free sessions on an online therapy platform, he said, but no additional psychiatric or behavioral health support.
“This felt like a nice, productive avenue forward, and now we’re left scrambling to try to figure out how we can get somebody else to step up and provide this for us,” Remke said. “If they’re not providing this, then who can?”
Jenkins said the chemical spill last fall was the event that led outsiders to come into the science building and discover that for at least a decade prior, chemicals had been improperly stored there.
NIOSH would have also been able to conduct a long-term epidemiological study to trace health patterns among people who have worked in the building, Jenkins said. New Mexico doesn’t have the resources to do that on its own, she said.
“There’s concerns of people that have worked in the building for the past decade because of what’s been uncovered,” Jenkins said. “There are concerns on children born with low birth weights. There are concerns of a few people with auto-immune diseases. There have been some people that have died.”
No one will be able to absolutely determine the concerns’ cause, Jenkins said, but people want to know how to help themselves in the future if something were to develop.
“The easy thing is to fix it,” she said. “Then the next step is, what do you do to address the chronic parts of all this? Maybe there are no chronic parts, I have no idea, but maybe there are.”
‘It’s not going to stop us’
Remke started working at Highlands in August 2023. He recalls a strong, fumy smell in his office on the building’s first floor, near the chemical storage room. Before the situation escalated, he said he spent up to 80 hours cleaning up legacy chemical hazards in the science building.
He said he initially experienced burning in his throat and eyes, and then chronic gastrointestinal symptoms that persisted until this February. The university’s insurer denied his worker’s compensation claim, he said, so he had to pay hundreds of dollars out-of-pocket for blood tests to try to resolve his symptoms and determine his illness’ cause.
Remke said during the evaluation, NIOSH officials interviewed him for two hours about his account of what happened in the building and the kinds of services the university needs.
Safety practices on campus have improved generally since the evaluation began, he said, including more support and advocacy for proper materials handling, and the hiring of a dedicated chemical hygiene officer who helps clean up chemical hazards.
Jenkins said Highlands reorganized its Environmental Health and Safety Office, which along with the hygiene officer, puts the university back into compliance.
“We’re working together — the university, the union and the faculty — to make sure this never happens again,” she said.
She said her union holds workplace safety and bloodborne pathogen training on campus, and formed a safety committee to quickly receive reports and resolve situations.
Remke said while future chemical exposures on campus are possible, he thinks the risk is much lower than it was prior to the science building’s closure.
“Some support from these outside agencies was going to be very helpful for us but it’s not going to stop us from trying to organize on our own to make sure that we have an amazing campus with an amazing learning experience for our students,” Remke said.
This post was originally authored and published by Austin Fisher from via RSS Feed. to get your news feed on Nationwide Report®.
