Broomfield High shut down after asbestos discovery

By Tillie Fong, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published December 14, 2007 at 8:07 p.m.
Updated December 14, 2007 at 8:07 p.m.

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A basketball game at Broomfield High School on Friday night was canceled after elevated levels of asbestos were discovered in a hallway outside a boiler room at the school.

"We're not certain of the scope of the asbestos to allow people to come into the building," said Briggs Gamblin, spokesman for Boulder Valley School District.

"The building is closed and will remain closed, and we will start air quality testing first thing in the morning."

The basketball game against Ralston Valley High School has been postponed until Thursday, with a location yet to be designated. Basketball practice Saturday has also been canceled, and Gamblin said the entire school will be closed through the weekend.

"We hope to have some sense of the scope and the source of the issue by tomorrow evening," said Gamblin. "We have not made a decision about school at Broomfield High next week."

A series of events that started last month led to the discovery of the asbestos in a hallway, which was sealed Friday. The hallway is located near several classrooms and student lockers.

On Nov. 6 the boiler for the school failed. Maintenace workers immediately fixed it, but swept the debris from the repair into piles inside the boiler room for future disposal.

Late last month, when the district's Operations and Environmental Services office learned of the repair, they ordered that the debris be tested.

"Given the age of the boiler, it was likely to have asbestos," Gamblin said.

The boiler room was sealed before Thanksgiving, so that no one else could get into it.

The test results from the debris came back Wednesday showing the presence of asbestos.

On Thursday a remediation team, complete with environmental suits, removed the debris and cleaned the boiler room. "The last thing they did was to take test samples (of the air in the boiler room)," said Gamblin. "Some people didn't know they needed to test the hallway, but just to be on the safe side, they did."

The results from the boiler room tests came back Friday morning, showing that it was clean. But the tests of the hallway air, which were not known until Friday between 3:30 p.m. and 4 p.m., showed the presence of asbestos.

"We expected that to come back fine, but it came back higher than expected and above safe levels," said Gamblin.

Gamblin said that he did not want to speculate on whether any students or staff members were exposed to asbestos in the hallway since November.

"We just don't know the scope of the problem and the source of the problem," he said. "It's not clear that the source of the asbestos (in the hallway) came from the boiler room. That's why we need to check. We cannot rule anything out at this point."

As of Friday night, only environmental services and abatement personnel were allowed in the building.

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