PAWTUCKET -- Mercury contamination was found at Shea High School and two apartment buildings by investigators checking to see whether any of the highly toxic heavy metal taken from a New England Gas Co. storage shed during a break-in had spread to other locations, endangering public health.
The amount of mercury at Shea was so slight the school wasn't closed, and Shea principal Christopher Lord circulated a memo reassuring teachers, staff and students that it was safe to be in the building.
But high enough levels of mercury were found in the apartment buildings to require the evacuation of two families, one from an apartment at 172 Division St., the other from an apartment at 52 Ashburne St.
Don Squires, an engineering technician for the Department of Environmental Manmagement, said the apartment on Division Street had been home to the family of one of the teenagers who broke into the New England Gas Co. storage shed and removed a large quantity of mercury, taking it back to the Lawn Terrace apartment complex at Pleasant and Division Streets.
More than 100 people have had to be evacuated from that apartment complex. A major environmental cleanup is under way.
Harvey E. Goulet, director of administration to Mayor James E. Doyle, said the apartment that had to be vacated at 52 Ashburne St. was visited frequently by someone from the Lawn Terrace apartment complex. Joseph Scallin, director of physical plant for the Pawtucket Public Schools, said the mercury contamination at Shea High School was detected in a 3-by-7-foot square of carpet outside the library and in a throw rug inside a side entrance on the first floor.
The throw rug was disposed of; the square of carpet was removed and the area was scrubbed clean, Scallin said.
Tests subsequently put the level of mercury contamination at Shea at zero, Scallin said. Tests conducted at Oak Hill Nursing Home, as well as Francis J. Varieur Elementary School and the International Charter School, on Pleasant Street, also showed zero mercury contamination, according to DEM spokeswoman Stephanie Powell.
The search for mercury contamination has been going on since Oct. 13, the day after a New England Gas Co. employee discovered a large quantity of mercury missing from a storage shed on the so-called Tidewater property, a largely deserted, 23-acre area that used to be the site of a coal gasification plant.
The search has been exhaustive because mercury, which is liquid at room temperature, poses a serious health risk, particularly if it is inhaled or ingested. The four vandals -- two 17-year-olds, an 18-year-old and a 20-year-old -- who broke into the storage shed poured 10 pounds of stolen mercury onto the ground and took another 10 pounds to the Lawn Terrace apartment complex.
They were unaware of the dangers, said Jack McIlmail, the Pawtucket police detective who interviewed them. "They were just playing around," he said.
The four have been charged with burglary and theft. Until recently, they and their families were being housed at the Comfort Inn, along with the more than 100 people evacuated from the apartment complex.
Cmdr. John J. Whiting, the officer in charge of the Police Department's detective division, said the vandals and their families may be moved elsewhere by the gas company, which is picking up the tab for the evacuation and the cleanup, to prevent angry neighbors from retaliating against them.
There have been "rumblings," Whiting said, and, while neighbors' animosity might be understandable, "we're not going to tolerate any intimidation," he said.
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