Cost estimate on mercury cleanup not yet determined
By GREG TRAVIS
Staff Writer
Last week's mercury spill at Calloway County Middle School may have been deemed small by local officials, but it appears that cleaning up the element is going to be costly.
Calloway County School Superintendent Steve Hoskins, who was out of the office today and unavailable for comment, has said he hopes insurance will cover some of the losses. Students will also have to make up two missed days and a bus will be scrapped, according to David Dowdy, public relations coordinator for the school system.
Dowdy said this morning that no actual totals for the cleanup have been determined. “We are still trying to decide where we stand, what can be done and what, if anything, can be salvaged.”
Cindy Grubbs, district business administrator/financial officer, agreed, adding that officials do not yet have a total for the cleanup costs.
Accoridng to Dowdy, a $60,000 figure recently reported may only be a reference to the approximate cost of a replacement bus. He said a small amount of the mercury was spilled on the floor of a 2001 bus, so it was taken out of service and another bus was being used on that route. It was determined that cleanup would cost more than the value of the bus, so the bus will be cut up sometime in the next week or two.
He said the school system hoped to salvage some of the parts from the bus that weren't involved in any contamination, including the chassis, the motor and the transmission.
Authorities reported earlier that approximately two dozen workers from county, state and federal emergency agencies were on-site addressing the situation, which included the actual cleanup of the school, administrative oversight and monitoring of the event and testing of students' shoes, bags, and other items.
The entire county school system was dismissed on Monday and Wednesday last week before returning to school last Thursday. Classes were already scheduled to be out on Tuesday, Nov. 7, for Election Day.
Hoskins said last week that the spill was concentrated in an area near eighth-grade science classrooms. However, testing and cleaning involved the entire school, lockers, trash cans, dumpsters and busses, as well as other schools where students might have been.
A crew from a private team in Calvert City that specialize in this exact type cleanup work was called and worked day and night removing carpeting and molding to make sure everything in the school was clean, Hoskins said following the spill.
Of the approximately 750 students and 100 teachers, faculty and staff, some 40 pairs of shoes or other items showed some sign of contamination. Officials had stated that the mercury could have been transferred to automobile carpet, household carpeting, laundry hampers or other locations.
Hoskins said earlier that a thorough investigation was under way into the chain of events that led to the mercury spill, as well as how and when the mercury came into the school facility, when it left and where it went from there. He said school officials will continue to investigate the situation but their first concern had been making sure that everything was clean and every student was safe. He also noted that officials were looking at whether any school policies might have been violated by employees.
“We learned that the mercury spill was the apparent result of a student who found out that someone in her family had been in possession of a small vial of mercury for many years. The family member knew what not to do with it, but the child found it and carried it to school. We are learning that in the course of that action, a bead of the mercury was spilled in a bus and a few other small beads were spilled in other places” Hoskins had said.
Story created Nov 15, 2006 - 12:05:00 EST.
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