Petaluma Profile: Local mold-buster thrives on public service

Chip Prokop is an environmental air and water expert|

Unless the whipping afternoon Petaluma winds get your allergies riled up, you probably don’t spend a lot of time thinking about air quality. But Petaluma’s Chip Prokop has a hard time not seeing, not smelling and not noticing the quality of the environment of pretty much any space he enters.

Since 2001, Chip has been at the helm of the consulting company he started, Air and Water Sciences. His job? Making sure the air and water flowing through buildings is safe.

“When you’re in the environmental business, you drive by a gas station, you see the drums of soiled material and you look at every one,” says Prokop, explaining the way his career has shaped his view of the world. When he started his company, he explains, they did work on asbestos and lead-based paint cleanup, but mold was in the forefront.

For people with compromised immune systems, mold can cause big problems.

And Prokop knows more about it than anyone you’ve probably ever met. When he begins talking about tiny mold spores, his eyes light up as he engages his listener in what turns out to be a fascinating history.

In the 1960s and ’70s, a few factors converged that were good for mold (especially the “bad” mold, stachybotrys), but not great for our indoor air quality. Right around the ‘60s, builders switched from plaster (a mold deterrent), to drywall (a surface mold loves). Lead-based paint, another mold buster, was found to cause lots of health problems, so was banned in favor of the less toxic paints that mold loves. Then, in the 1970s, we started insulating our attics, and weather-stripping our doors and windows.

“Insulation makes houses tight,” Prokop explains, “but it keeps them from breathing – things stay wet longer and mold grows.”

Who knew?

Originally from Maryland, Chip studied Agricultural Engineering at the University of Maryland. A stint in Ghana, Africa, with the Peace Corps followed and changed his life. The work he did, reestablishing a pineapple crop after a disaster, made him eager to be of service in his career. But he also met a kindred spirit, a Petaluma native named Denise Toll, who would become his wife. After their time in Ghana, they applied for jobs in both of their hometowns. She got the first nibble, with the EPA in San Francisco.

So Petaluma became their home.

“It’s great to be with someone who knows that part of your history,” he says today. The couple settled here and raised two kids - now grown and living in San Francisco. His wife is a middle school math teacher at Cherry Valley.

“I love the growth boundaries here and having green space surrounding the city,” Prokop says of his adopted city. “I love its proximity to the ocean as well as the city.”

In his off hours, he likes to bicycle, hike and bird watch.

Prokop has overseen the replacement of stucco exteriors and windows on leaky buildings, cleaned up interiors where burning air filtration systems spewed dioxin and fire debris over ever inch, and tested over 200 schools for lead paint.

And of course, recently, he’s been busy because of the Santa Rosa fires. His company was on a team with the EPA that inspected debris for asbestos. Because most of the houses in Fountaingrove and Coffey Park were newer, it wasn’t a huge problem.

Asked what the grossest job is that he’s ever done, he describes being called by a new homeowner whose kid was having problems breathing. The seller hadn’t disclosed any problems with the house, but neighbors quickly told the new owners that it had been a meth lab.

“Usually, chemicals used during the production (of meth) remain in the house and slowly off-gas,” he explains. Chemicals had also been poured down the drain for years, seeping into the groundwater.

“Having to sample the septic system for methamphetamine was probably the worst job I’ve had to do,” he says.

But generally speaking, Prokop likes his work. A lot.

“Indoor air quality can really influence people’s health immediately, on a day by day basis. People get rashes, asthma. They continually get sick and they can’t get well. It’s rewarding to be able to work on them and solve these issues.”

What’s the best way to make sure your air quality is good, according to the expert?

“Keeping your windows open is the best thing you can do,” he says. “Fresh air. We keep our windows at least cracked - even in the wintertime.”

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