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The university is working on a “tentative timeline for the reopening” of the downtown venue after air quality test results fell within guidelines.
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McGill University said Monday that it is working on a plan to reopen Moyse Hall after the discovery of asbestos at the downtown theatre led to its temporary shutdown two weeks ago.
“We will update the community once we have a tentative timeline for the reopening of some or all of the rooms” affected, said McGill spokesperson Frédérique Mazerolle.
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The theatre on Sherbrooke St. W., which seats about 300 people, was closed on Jan. 16 after McGill’s Environmental Health and Safety unit collected dust samples from debris observed by members of the cleaning staff. The test results came back positive for asbestos on Jan. 17, leading McGill to undertake additional air quality testing.
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The university administration, “out of an abundance of caution,” also closed some adjoining rooms of the McCall MacBain Arts Building and the basement, located beneath the theatre, according to a message sent out to students and staff in the English department.
The rest of the building remained open.
Results of those subsequent air quality tests indicate asbestos fibre levels fall below Quebec’s and McGill’s asbestos threshold, Mazerolle said. However, Mazerolle declined to provide the raw data.
The Quebec government’s threshold is 0.1 fibres per centimetre cubed, and McGill’s threshold is 0.01.
The health risk from inhaling asbestos fibres is low, but it can cause lung cancer, asbestosis — a deadly hardening of the lungs — and mesothelioma cancer.
Concerns about the possibility of dust in the theatre were first raised to McGill’s Environmental Health and Safety unit by the English department on Jan. 6.
Named after the late McGill English professor Charles Ebenezer Moyse in the 1920s, Moyse Hall is used today by McGill’s English department, and by student and external renters for theatre productions.
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One group impacted by its closure was the McGill Arts Undergraduate Theatre Society (AUTS), which had scheduled to use the hall for its production of Legally Blonde starting Jan. 26.
The show, forced to relocate to Trafalgar School for Girls, was scaled down due to the change of venue and because most of the costumes, designs and props were stuck in the closed-off areas.
Caitlin Sibthorpe, AUTS financial director, said the cost of the disruption was “at minimum a few thousand dollars.”
Kimberly Hönig, president of AUTS and the production manager for Legally Blonde, also noted that around 10 students and five technicians used the theatre around the stage area on Jan. 15 during initial production setup.
In response to health risks concerns raised by the students, McGill cited the Quebec government’s health advice, which states that “health problems associated with asbestos are rare in the general population; they are more common in people who work in areas where there is high exposure to exposure for a prolonged amount of time.”
Despite McGill informing students involved with productions about the closure through McGill staff, the university remained quiet to the rest of the community.
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However, on Jan. 19, a student shared anonymously that there was asbestos in the Arts building to the wider student body on the Instagram confession page, Spotted: McGill.
The post containing the leak reached over 10,000 accounts, according to data provided by the page.
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The closure of Moyse Hall comes as the latest asbestos-related incident at McGill.
Last year, the university closed the Stewart Biology Building on its downtown campus for two weeks after burst water pipes exposed asbestos fibres.
It was also forced to close three buildings on the Macdonald campus over asbestos, leading to an internal investigation that found asbestos protocols were not followed and students were exposed.
The Macdonald investigation made 25 recommendations to improve McGill’s asbestos politics, which the university accepted and is acting on.
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