Iqaluit middle school shut indefinitely due to ongoing fuel leak concerns

Aqsarniit Middle School will be closed indefinitely until a fuel leak is properly cleaned up, says the chairman of Iqaluit’s district education authority.

Doug Workman, the head of Iqaluit’s DEA, said he was surprised to learn from Education Department officials on Monday at 3:30 p.m. that the school has been under a stop work order through the Workers’ Safety and Compensation Commission.

For the previous four days, Workman and school staff had received reassurances from education officials that a fuel leak inside the boiler room was resolved and students were cleared to go back to school.

Workman said that education officials told the school principal on Thursday that air testing had come back clean, and he himself also received an email saying the school was safe that evening.

“Somebody dropped the ball,” Workman said. “Somebody didn’t provide accurate information.”

A fuel leak was caused by a loose fuel connection in the boiler room of the school on Thursday, but by that afternoon staff believed students were cleared to come back the next morning.

Students returned to class on Friday, but they were sent home early that afternoon, with some reporting dizziness and headaches, Workman said.

“It was pretty intense on Friday,” he said.

After being in the school for about 20 seconds himself, Workman said he felt dizzy.

Workman said on Friday, the smell was so strong towards the front of the school that administrative staff had opened windows to air it out, despite outside air temperatures of about -26 C.

Now, he’s been told students shouldn’t have been allowed back into the building.

A stop work order is put in place when an imminent danger to workers is found on a work site, according to the Workers’ Safety and Compensation Commission’s website.

Nunatsiaq News could not immediately reach communication staff at WSCC, the Health Department or the Education Department on Monday afternoon to confirm the stop work order is in place.

On Friday, Troy Rhoades, a spokesperson for the Department of Education, said in an email to Nunatsiaq News “the connection was repaired, the mechanical room was cleaned, and the school was safe to be occupied.”

On Sunday evening, Workman and the school principal met at Aqsarniit to make sure it was safe for students to return on Monday, but they smelled fuel right away when they walked in.

“I was wearing a mask when I was there and I was starting to get woozy,” he said.

After another check early on Monday morning, they made the decision to keep the school closed because the smell was still so strong.

Workman said he sent an email to the Department of Education on Monday afternoon asking if they could do anything to open the door from the utility room to outside to let out fumes.

Currently, Community and Government Services is the only organization with a key to open the school’s boiler room, meaning school staff can’t open it, Workman said.

Someone from WSCC is also supposed to go check on the situation at the school Monday evening, Workman said.

“If we don’t hear anything, we’re probably going to be closed for a while,” he said.

Workman said parents will be notified when they can send their kids back to school again.