During the last rain in Beatty on Sept. 8, maintenance workers found what they thought was mold in the boys’ locker room showers.
Beatty Principal Gary Flood said the district was notified and responded the next day. “I called the district and on Tuesday the district sealed off the area. The ventilation was closed and the shower room was sealed off,” he said.
Nye County School District Operations Manager Cameron McRae confirmed workers did uncover some mold in the boys’ shower room at Beatty High School gym and it was quickly contained and removed.
“We found some black mold on the encapsulated side of the drywall in the boys’ locker room at the Beatty High School gym,” McRae said in a frustrated tone. “We did not have to remove the drywall and the mold is contained.
“If we had opened it up, there is always the possibility of mold spores. Initially we closed the locker room off immediately and the gym itself was left open. We called the appropriate contractor and they contained it and sealed it off so they could use the locker room. They came back in the morning and tested the space they were working in. They do that before they close it all up to be sure there is no residual issues and during that time they use a HEPA filtering system to filter the air of any potential mold spores that have become airborne when the drywall and insulation became disturbed.”
McRae said the mold never endangered any of the students. “There was mold, and it was growing on the inside of the drywall. We closed the room down and did the remediation and the gym was never closed. Until we exposed it and found it, it did not pose any health issue. At this point they are closing it all up because all is well at the Beatty boys’ shower room,” McRae said.
This is the third mold issue the district has discovered this year. All of the mold events were handled appropriately and quickly and he emphasized that the students were never in any danger.
“We had the same issue when the rain event happened here. We found mold in a storage room and in one of the classrooms at Rosemary Clarke Middle School. Same thing that happened in Beatty happened in Pahrump.
“We immediately closed it off and we called the remediation people and they did the testing and the restoration and all is well. The one location at Rosemary Clarke this was the second time for that location because when we took it apart it was apparent that it had rain damage sometime in its history before I came here. So we dealt with it a second time.”
McRae said he was not down-playing the mold issues. He said he had been around this for a long time. “Mold is everywhere. There are types of mold that are more of a concern for those who have existing respiratory problems and other types of issues. If we had not gone in to correct the water damage could that mold have grown to become an issue? Yes. I could not say no, that would be inappropriate. How much and how long is the question? There really is no way of knowing because not every water intrusion turns into a mold event,” he said.