The air has been cleared at Newmarket's tennis club.
After months of work and testing, the air quality issues at the Keith Davis Tennis Club have been resolved, the Town of Newmarket announced today.
The town has been working on the issue since last September, when small amounts of an industrial degreaser, trichloroethylene, were detected in the air inside the clubhouse.
The amount of the chemical was not dangerous and was found to be leaching into the building from the ground, likely the legacy of past industrial use of the property decades ago.
"We discovered there was a challenge there during some work we were doing ahead of some future plans," said Mayor John Taylor.
"We consulted with experts and (the low concentration in the air) was declared safe, but ... we didn't want to leave it there."
The town installed a sub-slab depressurization system in the clubhouse, which works by collecting the gas in an underground pocket before it can reach the surface and then vents it into the atmosphere, bypassing the clubhouse.
The ventilation system was completed in January, but the town continued to do many more testing before declaring the problem resolved on Friday.
"It's working extremely well, and levels are significantly below ministry guidelines. We will still monitor it closely, but it would appear to be problem solved," Taylor said.
There was no trichloroethylene in the air in the bubble where the indoor tennis courts are located, and they were able to open for public use on Feb. 22 as York Region left lockdown.
The town decided to fix the air quality issue at the clubhouse despite the fact that the tennis club will be moving from its current location from the community centre lands at some point in the future.
The town has other plans for the downtown space, so there are tentative plans to relocate the tennis club to Art Ferguson Park on Bayview Avenue.
Council hasn't made any final decision to fo so, but according to the town's most recent recreation playbook, the move to the park will also allow for the club to grow, something its members have been asking for.
