The Star - News, views and advertising of the Grand Coulee Dam Area

The Lake Roosevelt High School gym should be ready for basketball again this week, an official from Walker Construction assured the school board last Wednesday evening.

Jim Crowley stated that the gym roof is sealed and that the final steel sheeting should be on site in about three weeks.

Crowley said final cleaning of the interior of the gym would be completed by the end of last week.

High school basketball games and wrestling tournaments were forced to move to the old Grand Coulee Dam Middle School gym after workers replacing the roof ran into asbestos, a hazardous substance.

Crowley said that 2- by 6-inch tongue-and-groove roofing had separated over time, allowing dustings of asbestos to fall onto the gym floor during repairs.

Superintendent Dennis Carlson showed the board a small baggie containing some granular asbestos material found on the gym floor.

"The gym is really clean now," Crowley told the board members.

Fulcrum, an environmental firm in Spokane, has been cleaning small particles of asbestos from the floor and walls. "It is an exacting process," Crowley stated.

The discovery of asbestos forced the district to bring in experts to handle the asbestos problem.

Earlier, rain penetrating the roof while it was being repaired had caused the activity scheduled for the gym to be vacated to the former middle school.

Crowley said the interior was now clean, the bleachers wiped clean and the walls also cleaned.

Walker has replaced the roofing with a sublayer and is now waiting for the steel roofing sheets to arrive.

While the firm is waiting for this, it is putting on the steel siding that matches the new building nearby.

The board learned that stone masons would be on the job this week to put up the stone trim on the outside of the gym and former high school administration area, which should take about two weeks.

"The whole project should be done by March," Crowley stated.

Meanwhile, the gym will be ready for play this week.