What started off as a water issue in the basement of the Town of Huntsville-owned CN Station has turned into a much bigger problem for the municipality.
The Huntsville/Lake of Bays Chamber of Commerce was scheduled to rent space for a one-year period at the Station, following the sale of its building at 8 West Street to Coldwell Banker. But Huntsville Mayor Scott Aitchison said Chamber Executive Director Kelly Haywood decided to have the air quality tested at the building before moving her staff in and the test revealed unacceptable levels of mould.
“It’s not alarmingly high in the main part of the building. It is higher than acceptable and in the basement, of course, it’s very high… largely because of the water that flows through the building,” he said.
The Town has hired Pinestone Engineering to come up with a plan to resolve the water issue. “We need to see a plan for solving not just the mould but the cause of the mould and see what that looks like. In the meantime we figured it’s probably best not to have people in the building.”
Aitchison said the Town has never tested for mold before “but probably should have and probably could’ve assumed that when you get that water in a basement like that the potential for mould is real.” He said the engineering firm is expected to have a report completed in the next few weeks.
He said he held a meeting with most of the stakeholders on Wednesday to relay the findings. The chair of the Suzuki School of Music was unable to make the meeting, but he said staff spoke to her by phone before the meeting. A press release was issued late in the afternoon of June 2, announcing the closure of the building. Doppler managed to reach the Director of the school, Philip Kashap, that same evening and he said he was not aware of the closure.
Pam Carnochan, co-chair of the Huntsville Art Society which is also a tenant in the building, said arts programming will continue at alternate venues.
“We’re just going to have to operate in a different manner at this point but we still will be hosting those shows,” she said. Their next show will take place at Partners Hall and they will continue to find alternate venues for their scheduled programming. “To find out that there’s a great deal of mould and the air quality is not good does make people consider things but I’ve been probably the person that’s been inhabiting the building the most and I haven’t suffered any ill effects,” she said.
The Town took over the building in 2003 from CN Rail.
See the press release issued by the Town here.
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The grounds around the building have been considered brown fields since the closure of the Tannery and the decommissioning of the massive site . The Air Quality in the building has always in my opinion be suspicious and I am aware of letters to that effect that have been sent to the town over the years. I expect that the continuing issues of the Tannery contamination and the air and land contamination is a big elephant in the room when questions are raised about ground and water testing and monitoring of the sites as requested by the province and confirmed shortly after elected by Mayor Claude Doughty. The Tannery site which includes contenting lands to CN property Huntsville Fire Hall was part of the conversation leading up to his Election. I would encourage this investigation this reporter to track down the site testing and the brown lands around the station. There are many people concerned that we are ignoring a problem with reoccurring contamination from Tannery property . The Town of Huntsville maintains the Liability on the Land occupied by KWH pipe , after the Bankruptcy of Canadian Leather back in the early nineteen fifties and we hope that we can get to the bottom of the building and land health in the heart of the Town and the risk to the Muskoka River might have to be part of this conversation.
You are correct. Thank you for pointing that out.
Kudos to Ms. Haywood for requesting an air quality test. Historical buildings have always been part of Huntsville’s charm, and finding alternative uses for them maintains their currency.
Also, never being one to leave a nit unpicked, “mould” is the proper Canadian spelling.