Sports Flooring Firm, School District Disagree Over Mercury Contamination

An Ohio sports flooring company and a school district are providing "differing versions of events that led to a mercury contamination in July," according to lancastereaglegazette.com. After beginning work on what was supposed to be a $2,964 gym floor repair job at Bloom-Carroll high school, workers for The Final Floor Inc. (Sugar Grove, Ohio) were forced to stop two days later after they cut through a polyurethane layer underneath the wood floor, releasing dust particles containing mercury into the air. A representative of The Final Floor says his company never saw test results indicating whether mercury was present in the polyurethane, while the high school's superintendent says otherwise. Now the school district is dealing with another firm for "design and pre-abatement services of the gym floor" at a cost of about $450,000.