By Anthony Varriano
Ranger-Review Staff Writer
Washington Middle School Principal Mark Goyette said there was a “distinct musty odor” in the gym during the annual winter dance, Friday night, and it was not the scent of middle school students. Then, the gym doors were “iced up on the inside” and on Monday morning, it was reported that the gym floor looked like it was warping in the entry way.
Sure enough, after it took two people to pry open the door to the crawl space under the gym floor, Goyette felt the escaping steam on his face.
The culprit this time was a heating unit in the entry way that stopped working and all the steam being sent to it was redirected beneath the gym floor.
This is the third time in the last four years that the gym floor has been damaged by steam. Work this summer was done to remove the old pipes under the gym to try to prevent another steam leak from damaging the floor.
The recent damage forced the final girls’ basketball game of the season to be played at the Dawson Community College auxiliary gym, an option for which Goyette was grateful.
Goyette called Pioneer Carpet Cleaning and Restoration who started pulling the condensation out of the gym floor on Monday afternoon, but when they attempted to put a large dehumidifier under the floor, they found the mold.
“The mold buildup is substantial, and it would not be safe to have that open for anyone to breath the air in there,” Goyette said, adding that the crew won’t go back in the crawl space for at least a week and might not be able to take the job at all.
Goyette spoke with someone at the Billings’ mold removal business that saw the WMS mold problem four years ago, and it’s worse now than it was then.
“It doesn’t sound cheap, and it doesn’t sound like something that’ll be a quick fix,” Goyette said.
Glendive Unified School Board member Kevin Thompson said he knew of a mold removal company he can recommend that was “great to work with” when his company used them in the past.
Ross Farber said the district is insured and has already opened a claim. He said the insurance assessor will take a look at it this week. He was already coming to town to assess Jefferson Elementary School’s damaged assets from the boiler flood.
Farber was most concerned with the gym being unavailable to students for physical education classes “during a time of year they have no place else to go.”
WMS faces another problem Goyette hopes to have fixed over the holiday break. There’s no heat in some of the classrooms in the science wing.
“When they put the heating unit in the northeast corner … they put a 90-degree corner in the piping because they had to get it above the ceiling so it’s not seen,” Goyette explained.
That 90-degree angle is clogging and keeping the steam from reaching the rooms. Goyette said even draining the pipe only lasted for a day.
“Multiple plumbers have been in over the years and recommended we have that fixed,” he said.
The roof repair over the science wing will be put off until spring. Repairs will be made by Richard Schwartz as needed to get through the winter.
The middle school did raise over $11,000 from pie sales to spend on technology infrastructure updates, which was the bulk of the good news from Goyette’s report.
Reach Anthony Varriano at rrsports@rangerreview.com.