BRISTOL — Mold that was recently discovered in the boys’ shower rooms at Mount Abraham Union High School has spread farther than was previously thought.
Earlier this month district officials discovered leaky plumbing and mold inside the walls of two shower rooms and immediately set about dealing with it. On Monday, the company hired to clean it up made an unwelcome discovery.
The mold has penetrated all the way through to the other side of the wall, where there is an adjacent stairwell.
“To remove the mold the (drywall) in the back stairwell must be removed,” said Joel FitzGerald, facilities director for the Mount Abraham Unified School District (MAUSD). “This can only be done when school is not in session, because of egress and containment.”
The district now has no choice but to gut the entire area, he added.
On Tuesday night, at the MAUSD annual meeting, Superintendent Patrick Reen confirmed that the district doesn’t yet know how long the repairs will take or how much they will cost.
There’s also no telling how much disruption students and community members can expect.
“It was our hope to get the downstairs shower back online as we make plans to renovate the upstairs, as that’s where the problem started,” FitzGerald told the Independent in an email. “We did make a temporary repair upstairs that keeps at least one boys’ shower working. Until plans are set, the downstairs boys’ shower area will stay sealed off, and the upstairs will stay open as long as the temporary repair holds.”
Reach Christopher Ross at [email protected].