BENNETTSVILLE, S.C. (WBTW) – A second mold evaluation was done on Bennettsville Intermediate School in Marlboro County on Saturday.

President of Elysium Environmental Services and Industrial Hygienist, Mike Underhill, spent most of the day collecting more than 20 samples around the school.

“The School Board has asked me to come in and do a follow up survey to what General Engineering Laboratories had done and I’m just following in their footsteps,” Underhill said. “In other words I’m sampling in the areas that they were sampling in.”

An inspection completed at Bennettsville Intermediate School by G-E-L Engineering earlier this year shows mold was found both inside and outside of the building, but was not harmful to students and staff. G-E-L Engineer Ronald Sharpe’s reported mold was found in eight out of 12 surface swab samples of dust.

The Marlboro County School Board recently voted to send third and fourth graders at Bennettsville Intermediate to Marlboro County High Schools. Marlboro County School Board Chair, Lucy Parsons, said the high school also has mold. Students at Marlboro County High started a petition against the move last week.

Underhill said he used an air sampling pump to test Bennettsville intermediate.

“It’s attached to a tube which is attached to a spore trap and when you turn that on, you let it run for about ten minutes and it collects, not only mold spores, but it collects all kinds of particles in the air,” Underhill explained. “We’ll take two of those, one before I start inside and then one after I’m finished and we’ll compare the two, and we’ll compare all the samples that are inside to each other and to the outside to see if there’s a significant difference.”

Underhill said testing a building for mold can take at least eight hours.

“Mold spores are everywhere in the air and we would expect to see the same kinds and types of normal molds that you find outdoors,” he said. “Should be similar to as you’d find inside, but usually at lower levels.”

Underhill said he expects to have results from Saturday’s evaluation by Friday, Dec. 15th.