NEW ORLEANS -- As residents of New Orleans begin to reenter the homes and businesses left standing after Hurricane Katrina, many may face an obstacle more pervasive and possibly more dangerous than mud and rotting wood: mold spores reproducing inside tens of thousands of buildings.
 
Public health experts say mold could present significant risks and may force thousands of demolitions.
 
Trillions of spores, exacerbated by the sultry weather, could sicken the 20 percent of the population that has allergy problems, experts say, and could also be dangerous for older residents, children and people with weakened immune systems.
 
Further, New Orleans has large populations with high rates of asthma -- particularly blacks and people living below the poverty line -- which can be aggravated by mold.
 
But as the city confronts its enormous rebuilding task, removing mold has been deemed a low priority.
 
Officials at the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals, the agency primarily responsible for mold mitigation, said the department was so overwhelmed with other flood-related work that it could not inspect homes or analyze the potential health risks of mold, beyond disseminating information on its website.
 
After the city's levees were breached, tens of thousands of commercial and residential structures were submerged. Any wall or ceiling above the flood line was at risk of attracting mold spores, which are present in the air and reproduce when there is sufficient moisture and when they have a food source -- organic materials like insulation, mattresses, wallpaper, upholstered furniture and stuffed animals.
 
Dr. Douglas Rice, director of the environmental quality laboratory at Colorado State University, said each square inch of mold growth could produce 1 million spores. While most people will not feel any ill effects of breathing a moderate number of spores, Rice said that even healthy people could come down with sinus and lung infections that could spread to the brain and that some molds produced toxins that could cause birth defects and cancer.
 
But other experts disagree, and studies examining the long-term health effects of mold exposure have been inconclusive.
 
Dr. Harold Zeliger, a chemical toxicologist in West Charlton, N.Y., said the mold in New Orleans -- after nearly four weeks of uninterrupted growth -- could force the widespread demolition of buildings.
 
"Even if they could be saved structurally," Zeliger said, "it probably doesn't make economic sense to do so."
 

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