Closed Wednesday for mold treatment at jail: Monroe County justice building, probation, public defender

Monroe County’s justice building at 7th Street and College Avenue, including clerk’s offices, and the probation and public defender buildings, are closed Wednesday (Aug. 27). The notification of the closure was delivered at 8 a.m. sharp through the county’s emergency alert system.

The notifications stated that anyone who had a scheduled appointment on Wednesday with any of the closed offices is supposed to call Thursday morning to reschedule. The sign posted on the justice building door says initial criminal hearings set for Wednesday, Aug. 27 at 1 p.m. have been rescheduled for Thursday Aug. 28 at 1 p.m.

The reason for the closure is to do mold treatment inside the jail. The fogging method that’s being used to treat the inside air requires relocating prisoners elsewhere inside the building. That follows efforts to test, treat, and clean mold in other parts of the building that started in early August.

According to a news release from the Monroe County sheriff Ruben Marté’s office Wednesday morning, the testing done by VET Environmental Engineering found only “minor amounts” of mold inside the jail. The news release says that in some cases “only single spores” were detected. The release says that laboratory results indicate that the mold was present at “acceptable levels.”

The mold treatment is being undertaken at the jail “out of an abundance of caution,” according to the news release. It will involve fogging which means no one is supposed to enter the areas for three hours. Based on remarks given at a briefing by VET last week, the product to be used for the fogging is likely RMR141, which is the brand name of a disinfectant whose active ingredient is dimethyl benzyl ammonium chloride.

Wednesday’s plan is to temporarily house prisoners in the courtroom areas of the justice building while the treatment is done. Other options were reportedly considered, including moving prisoners to the parking garage. The news release indicates that the typical approach to evacuating a jail would be to move the more than 200 prisoners to other jails in central Indiana.

The news release describes the approach that Marté is taking as allowing prisoners “to remain in Monroe County, close to their families and the courts, while we work to ensure a safe facility.” Marté is quoted in the release saying, “I am proud of my staff for the creativity and compassion they have shown during this process.”

The news release says that the mold treatment work will continue on Thursday but will not require moving prisoners outside the jail, because they can be relocated in locations internal to the jail.