The Washington County courthouse in Abingdon — which reopened last week after being shut down due to black mold and other fungal growth — may still have humidity issues, two judges said in email records obtained by Cardinal News.
The courthouse was closed in late August for three weeks after an air quality report showed high levels of mold in some courtrooms, lobbies, judges’ offices and jury rooms, according to tests from Crossroads Environmental Services.
Reports from Bristol-based restoration company BELFOR say the building underwent fogging and other cleaning, including checking documents for mold and boxing them in protective containers.
The test showed four types of mold in the courthouse: Aspergillus, Penicillium, Cladosporium and Stachybotrys, the latter of which is commonly known as black mold. Prolonged exposure to large amounts of mold can cause allergic reactions and respiratory issues, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention — especially for people with asthma, lung disease or immunocompromised conditions.
The Crossroads report said the mold levels were “higher than desirable,” and some areas, like the circuit court courtrooms and offices, were “significantly contaminated.” The report was obtained by Cardinal News through a records request.
The county completed a renovation of the courthouse in mid-2025, including an expansion that added new courtrooms. It cost $28 million and took three years.
County Administrator Jason Berry wrote in an email that the cause of the mold can’t be determined, but the county has discovered the 12-year-old roof over the historic section of the courthouse needs to be replaced. Three rooftop HVAC units will also have to be replaced. The renovations originally replaced only one HVAC unit, he said.
County staffers had submitted more than a dozen work orders mentioning leaking, standing water and sewage smells from shortly after the 2025 renovation’s completion until September 2026, according to records obtained by Cardinal News. The county brought in BELFOR to clean up the mold, and according to email records, the firm remains on retainer.
A couple of judges emailed Berry and Washington County General Services Director Kevin Hill when the building reopened Sept. 14, saying they had concerns.
Circuit Judge Eric Thiessen emailed Hill, saying the humidity was registering at 75% in the judicial chambers area and that the papers on his desk were moist. He emailed again later that day to say the humidity was still around 70%.
Crossroads Environmental Services recommends humidity levels be brought down to 30% to 50% to prevent mold, according to the company’s reports.
Chief Judge Deanis Simmons also wrote emails to Berry and Hill that day, saying the humidity near her office was at 72%. She called the dampness “miserable.”
Simmons and Thiessen declined to comment on the current condition of the courthouse.
So far, BELFOR has invoiced the county for $425,000 for the mold cleanup. A board of supervisors resolution states the money will come from the county’s fund balance, which is typically used for emergencies and one-time expenses. Berry wrote in an email that he doesn’t know what the total cost will be yet.
“The cleaning process at the courthouse is complete, and we are close to removing the dehumidification units this week,” Berry wrote in response to questions about the judges’ emails regarding humidity issues.
Email exchanges about the conditions in the courthouse continued between judges, clerks and Berry throughout the first week it opened
“Until we walked into our chambers this morning, we understood that the remediation was complete,” Simmons wrote to Berry. “We cannot continue to function in unhealthy, unacceptable and inappropriate conditions, especially in light of the past necessitated closure.”
She wrote in a separate email that her office had to keep the thermostat below 67 degrees to keep the humidity down, calling the temperature uncomfortable.
Later that week, Circuit Court Clerk Patricia Moore emailed Berry to say she and state archivist Greg Crawford found mold in her archives.
The records were some of the oldest in the county, she wrote, and the issue needed to be addressed as soon as possible.
“To add insult to injury, we now have at least one juror who is requesting testing reports and someone responsible for assurance of their health and safety before consenting to report for jury duty,” Moore wrote. “Spoiler alert, there will be others.”
Berry emailed the judges and Moore with updates, saying the county was bringing in more industrial dehumidifiers and keeping BELFOR on retainer. Those dehumidifiers will stay on until the building is dried out and several rooftop HVAC units are replaced, he wrote.
A Crossroads Environmental Services employee conducted swab tests on Moore’s records three days after the courthouse reopened. He emailed Hill to tell him there was some mold on the records and suggested mild cleaning — though the mold seemed to be at “post-remediation level,” he wrote.
For Juvenile and Domestic Relations Court Clerk Joshua Osborne, the shutdown came as a surprise.
He and his staff had heard about some issues with moisture from the other court offices working in the building, he said by phone. Based on his understanding, he said, the county could only do so much with the original courthouse structure during renovations because it’s a historic building.
The structure was built in the late 1860s, and it’s included in the Abingdon Historic District, which is on the National Register of Historic Places. Facing security problems and disability access noncompliance, the county considered relocating courthouse operations to a then- vacant Kmart building on Town Centre Drive in 2019. The building now houses the EO Companies complex.
Officials eventually put the plan on the ballot that November so voters could make the decision. It was rejected, and the courthouse stayed where it was and underwent the renovation instead.
Osborne didn’t realize the mold was a big enough issue to result in a three-week closing, he said.
“We were in the middle of a court day when they shut us down,” Osborne said. “We had to leave all of our equipment and office supplies and everything. We were borrowing from other courts and using those rooms. I kind of equate it to being homeless for a while, out of our element and trying to figure out what we could do.”
His office handles time-sensitive foster care cases, so while the courthouse was closed, several court cases took place virtually. Others were hybrid, with the option for people to attend virtually while judges borrowed courtrooms in Bristol and Smyth County, where Osborne’s office had jurisdiction. Courthouse staff from his office, general district court and circuit court set up shop in a training room in the Smyth County courthouse, he said.
There was no backlog of juvenile district cases by the time the building was open to the public again on Sept. 14, he said. When asked how the closing affected operations, Moore wrote in an email that the circuit court was prepared to handle any hearing that could be considered an emergency.
“Our dockets experienced a manageable backlog, and we’re back on track,” Moore wrote.
General District Court Clerk Sara Keen declined to comment about how the closing affected her operations.
