By CRAIG FREILICH

CANTON – The second phase of Canton Central School District’s $15 million capital project of buildings and grounds improvements has revealed more asbestos that has to be removed before new boilers are installed.

The project includes a major renovation of a wing at McKenney Middle School and major heating and ventilation upgrades.

Superintendent Bill Gregory said removing the old boiler prior to installation of a new one revealed more potentially cancer-causing asbestos than they thought was there, but it’s not a major setback.

“As soon as you get into tearing up infrastructure in the demolition phase, you get at things you couldn’t see before,” Gregory said.

A lot of asbestos abatement was done last summer, during the first phase of the project, but more was found in insulation wrapping a four-foot diameter ventilation pipe from the old boiler.

“It has to be abated before the new boilers are put in place,” and that removal was underway, Gregory said. That job was expected to be finished by early this week.

“Something like that runs into more money and delays the installation of the boilers. We certainly want that all done by the first week of school. You never know what the weather will be like in September.”

Some vermiculite insulation, also potentially containing asbestos, was found in the walls of the middle school complex, “and that has to be abated, too, but that won’t be as time-consuming,” Gregory said. That is in a wing of the middle school that isn’t being used at the moment.

“Of all the classes that were in that wing, the majority have been moved over to the high school. With that extra room, we didn’t have to rent any portable classrooms” while the remodeling work there proceeded.

Exterior work in this part of the project includes a new driveway, sidewalks and curbs, and a new all-weather running track and new sod for the field inside the track.

“Much of that work will continue well into next school year,” Gregory said.

The field won’t be ready for football in the fall, “so we’re scheduling games at alternate sites while it’s being finished up.”

Humidity from the swimming pool had been causing problems in an exterior wall there, so it is being rebuilt, but it will probably not be ready in time for team practice later this month, Gregory said.

Some of the pool work started last year included conversion of the swimming pool heater from steam to hot water, and installation of pool dehumidifier.

Other aspects of the program that were scheduled last year were:

• Dirt removal and construction of concrete pads in three locations in the high school for air handler units, beneath the cafeterias, under the administration offices, and at the juncture of the high school and middle school

• Replacement of bus garage lifts

• Installation of hot water piping in all crawl spaces.