School mostly cleared of any mercury contamination; classes set to resume Monday

From staff and wire reports

Published Friday, Sept. 9, 2016 | 10:11 a.m.

Updated Friday, Sept. 9, 2016 | 2:09 p.m.

Most of Walter Johnson Junior High School has been cleared of any potential mercury contamination, and students likely will return to class on Monday, Clark County School District Superintendent Pat Skorkowsky said.

Mercury was discovered Wednesday in the school’s gymnasium, but it may have been in the building before then, Skorkowsky said at a news briefing this morning. The Environmental Protection Agency is investigating how it got into the school, he said.

“We believe it was brought in, but we can’t confirm that at this time,” he said. “We know that there were no thermometers missing from the school.”

A teacher initially reported the substance after seeing a group of boys and girls playing with it during a school assembly in the gym. Las Vegas Fire & Rescue spokesman Tim Szymanski said there were about five to 10 drops of mercury.

Students were quarantined in their classrooms until they could be screened for contamination but were allowed to use the bathroom. They received water, juice and food. First responders also coordinated with parents to deliver medicine to children as needed.

The testing went on for hours, with people slowly trickling out of the school through Wednesday night until about 5 a.m. Thursday.

The fire department helped EPA workers conduct the screenings, which took about five minutes per person, though some had to be cleaned and checked multiple times. By 11 p.m. Wednesday, a fourth mercury-sniffing machine was flown in from California to speed up the process, Szymanski said.

It was the largest decontamination response the department has ever handled, he said.

One by one, the 1,200 students were swiped with a wand that checked for mercury residue. They also threw their labeled shoes and backpacks into a garbage bag to be examined separately.

Contaminated students had to be cleaned off, ranging from wipes for their hands, to dipping their feet into a tub of chemical soap, washing their hair and changing into a set of school-provided physical education uniforms.

Everyone was eventually cleared of mercury residue.

EPA officials still had about 1,400 bags to check as of this morning, said Randy Nattis, the agency’s on-site coordinator.

Parents concerned that contaminated items might have been brought home can take personal belongings in a garbage bag to the school to be tested, Nattis said. The process takes only a few seconds.

Skorkowsky encouraged parents or students with information about how the mercury got into the building to contact school administrators. “This is serious,” he said.

Some parents expressed concerns about their children’s safety and frustration over a lack of information about the incident.

“Any time a parent thinks their child is in danger, they have the right to be angry, but they also have to listen to explanations and try to understand that we don’t have the answers to the questions they are asking right now,” Skorkowsky said. “It’s not like we are trying to keep information from them.”

Administrators will be directly contacting parents who were upset about the process, he said.

Nattis said the school will be safe before the children are allowed back.

Las Vegas Sun reporter Kailyn Brown and the Associated Press contributed to this report.