Mold Found at Norris Recreation Center

A remediation crew began work Thursday evening to open a racquetball court wall in the after mold was discovered in the facility earlier in the day.

Community Unit School District 303 officials said the mold was discovered Wednesday evening, while the facility at 1050 Dunham Road has been closed for routine summer maintenance. Superintendent Dr. Donald Schlomann said Thursday night the facility's scheduled Aug. 13 reopening is in doubt as the district's environmental contractor and a remediation company begin working to assess the extent of the mold and begin the cleanup.

The center closes for two weeks each summer for maintenance work – this summer, the work was scheduled from July 30 through Aug. 12, according to Norris' website. Schlomann said it was during that work on Wednesday that workers painting the racquetball court walls noticed a soft spot. Further inspection of the area revealed mold, he said.

The was built in 1974, but an addition was made in 1980. An exterior wall of that addition, he said, is the wall of the pertinent racquetball court.

“We're still trying to decipher where it came from,” he said. “We have an environmental contract who is there sampling all the walls to determine the extent of this.”

Schlomann said a remediation firm is beginning to open the wall to expose the mold and clean it up.

is connected by a breezeway to , which was shut down in the spring of 2001 after black mold was discovered in it, according to a Wikipedia article on the school. The building was closed for the 2001-02 school year as the district hired contractors to make extensive cleanup and renovations to rid the school of the mold.