High levels of radon have been found at a Huron-Superior Catholic District School Board elementary school in Massey.
Three of eight classrooms at St. Mary topped Health Canada’s acceptable concentration of 200 Bq/m3, manager of plant services Steve Brown told reporters following the open session of a meeting of trustees on Wednesday evening. Readings done in early 2023 were “just over” the maximum amount, trustees heard. The board kept using the classrooms as Health Canada guidelines require mitigation within two years, Brown told The Sault Star in a followup email.
Elliot Lake-based Algoma Radon Testing, which monitors radioactive gas amounts at HSCDSB’s Our Lady of Fatima and Our Lady of Lourdes, approached the board slightly more than a year ago to do similar testing at St. Mary, said Brown. A vein of uranium runs from Elliot Lake to the Massey area. Algoma Public Health says radon results when uranium in rock and soil breaks down. Nor Mech Engineering, of Sault Ste. Marie, did a study “to determine mitigation methods.”
Trustees approved spending an estimated $250,000 to put in a polyethylene membrane over dirt in the school’s crawlspace and install 11 radon exhaust fan throughout the Algoma Street building. The board will “try and start (mitigation) as soon as possible,” said Brown. School improvements are usually done during the summer break, but most of the work that has to be done in Massey is “in areas that are not occupied spaces,” said Brown. “We can possibly get an early start if we can do some work that’s not noisy.”
No illnesses have been reported at the school due to the radon. The school has 155 students and about 20 staff. St. Mary was built in 1955 with additions in 1964 and 1973.
“We’ll do additional monitoring after we complete the mitigation project,” said Brown. Readings were done once following Algoma Radon Testing’s recommendation.
“We weren’t aware of eelvated levels of radon in (the) Massey area,” said Brown.
Elliot Lake trustee Kathleen Rosilius welcomed the board’s efforts at St. Mary.
“It’s very important to install ventilation,” she said of her experience living in the community formerly known as the Uranium Capital of the World.
The Elliot Lake schools are checked for radon levels “whenever there is a change to the building, such as recent ventilation upgrades,” said Brown.
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