Mason school consolidation site tests delivered with a disclaimer

Mason school consolidation site tests delivered with a disclaimer
July 28, 1998

Gazette Online

By Tara Tuckwiller
STAFF WRITER

POINT PLEASANT - No toxic waste appears to be contaminating the Mason County consolidated high school site, the head of a private testing firm told school board members Monday.
The results came with a disclaimer, though.
"We didn't sample for anything and everything," said Ron Potesta, head of Potesta and Associates of Charleston. "There may be something we missed."
The county paid Potesta $12,750 to test the school site's soil and groundwater after parents raised an alarm in April, when state environmental officials said the 65-acre field might be contaminated with toxic waste.
School board members - some of whom have since been voted out of office - had just voted to abandon a site the county already owned and buy the new site for $650,000 from a group of local businessmen.
They planned to close Wahama, Hannan and Point Pleasant high schools, and build a $15 million, 1,400-student county high school on the land north of Point Pleasant.
The land was part of a Superfund environmental cleanup site until four years ago, and toxic waste left over from a World War II explosives factory still contaminates the land and groundwater nearby.
The property was also used as a state agriculture test station for years, and parents became concerned that DDT and other pesticide residues may still contaminate the land.
Potesta didn't test for some of those chemicals, board member Shirley Gue noted. Gue has led other Mason County parents in fighting consolidation for three years.
"There's a known contaminant list from the Department of Defense. Arsenic, etc.," Gue said. "None of those things were tested?"
"That's correct," said Potesta engineer Dave Carpenter.
Carpenter said he just tested for what he expected to find, based on the memories of people who worked on the property and advice from some West Virginia University professors.
No written logs could be found for WVU's 30 years of agricultural tests, Potesta said. The man who ran the test station for 10 years said he may have some records of what chemicals he used, but he couldn't lay his hands on them just now.
Another man who had farmed the property said he had records of the chemicals he used, but he wouldn't let Carpenter see them.
"Most of them were referring to their memory, not exact logs," Potesta said.
"That's what concerns me," Gue said.
Potesta said he found no trace of the explosive trinitrotolulene (TNT), which contaminates the groundwater on the nearby Superfund site. He didn't find any residues from the pesticides and herbicides people remembered using on the field, either.
Potesta based his findings on 20 soil samples and a surface water sample from a drainage ditch that flows onto the property from the direction of the old explosives plant.
In wet weather, water from the ditch pools in the middle of the field and slowly seeps into the ground. In dry weather, a local farmer says the water in that ditch runs red, Carpenter said.
"That could be natural high iron in the soil. It could be biological activity," Carpenter said. "I never saw anything stained red in the ditch."
Local residents are still fighting the consolidation plan with a lawsuit, which is currently making its way through Mason County Circuit Court. Since anti-consolidation members took over the county school board in July, those residents have gained confidence.
"Won't make any difference," whispered consolidation foe Clifford Oliver, as Potesta and Carpenter prepared to make their presentation to the school board. "There ain't gonna be a school down there."

To contact staff writer Tara Tuckwiller, call 348-5189.

Consolidation hearing delay doesn't dampen Mason spirits

Consolidation hearing delay doesn't dampen Mason spirits
May 14, 1998

Gazette Online

By Tara Tuckwiller
PUTNAM COUNTY REPORTER

POINT PLEASANT - Hours after they claimed victory in the Mason County school board race, consolidation foes were back in the courthouse Wednesday for an injunction hearing to kill a proposed consolidated high school.
Their spirits weren't dampened when Circuit Judge Clarence Watt sent them all home, continuing the hearing until May 20 after school board lawyer John Teare filed a surprise motion early Wednesday.
"I'm still on a high from last night," said New Haven retiree Dorothy Roush, who worked to replace incumbents with anti-consolidation candidates Peggy Huff and Shirley Gue. "I wanted to go through town blowing my horn, but I've gotten this far without getting arrested and I don't want to start now."
Most of the courthouse spectators have been fighting consolidation for years. They lined up to support Gue in her injunction lawsuit this spring after school board members started pushing for a consolidated high school north of Point Pleasant.
Gue only named Mason County school board members in her lawsuit, but Teare's motion says that the state school board and School Building Authority should be defendants, too.
There's one problem with that motion, said Mason County board President David Morgan. The school board never discussed it, much less decided to do it. "I walked in this morning and they had filed their motion," said Morgan, who has voted in the minority on the board against consolidation. "They must have had a meeting last night that I missed."
Morgan lost in Tuesday's election, but anti-consolidation member Darrell Hagley will remain on the board. Together with Huff and Gue, Hagley will be able to outvote member Amanda Clark and new member Jo Hannah Rorrer, who are seen as favoring the consolidated high school.
Morgan said he suspects the election results scared the consolidation advocates on the board, and they want to bring in the state as a defendant in an effort to get the case moved to a Kanawha court.
"I'm no lawyer, but that's a problem for me," Morgan said. "We're supposed to be his clients, and I don't know whether this is good for us or bad for us. I think it's something that should have been discussed. It's major."
Superintendent Larry Parsons, who has worked to push consolidation through, said it's not out of the ordinary for a school board lawyer to act without consulting his clients.
"The board is not consulted routinely by the law firm," Parsons said. "That's the decision the law firm made, and the firm has the latitude to do that."
Parsons said Wednesday that if the new board starts voting against consolidation, he will just switch gears and do what they tell him.
"If the board changes and the direction's different, I'll work just as vehemently for that board," he said. "My job is to work for the board."
Gue's lawyer, Barry Bruce, asked for the continuance so he could review the opposition's argument. As he did two weeks ago when testimony started, Watt told the school board not to move forward on the consolidation plan until the lawsuit is resolved.
Watt, who had postponed the remaining testimony until after Tuesday's election, joked about the outcome with the crowd. "I notice among the spectators some bloodshot eyes. What were you doing last night?" he said. "I take it that there are winners and there are losers. Somebody has said that's all we've got left, is elections to decide things.
"Now go home and get some sleep."

Election may mean consolidation reversal

Election may mean consolidation reversal
May 13, 1998

By Ken Ward Jr.
GAZETTE ONLINE

Anti-consolidation candidates trounced incumbents in the Mason County school board race Tuesday night, perhaps paving the way to reverse a move to create one high school for the entire county.
Challengers and leading consolidation opponents Shirley Gue of Ashton and Peggy Huff of New Haven led the ticket in a field of 15 candidates, with 3,379 and 3,312 votes, respectively.
With all 38 precincts reporting, another challenger, Jo Hannah Rorrer of Point Pleasant, came in a distant third with 1,371 votes to capture the third open seat.
Huff and Gue ran a "Vote for Two, Huff and Gue" campaign against the consolidation and incumbent consolidation proponents Donna M. Thompson and Mary Beth Carlisle.
"I think the county has spoken," Gue said from Point Pleasant. "We're going to say a prayer and then stop one high school."
Thompson received just 844 votes and Carlisle, 446. Another incumbent, J. David Morgan, received 1,027 votes. Morgan had a mixed voting record on consolidation, but voted against it in the end.
School consolidation opponents targeted Carlisle and Thompson for defeat after they voted in favor of combining Point Pleasant, Wahama and Hannan high schools into one facility.
One of the two incumbents not up for re-election this year voted against the consolidation. So with a victory by Gue and Huff, they could attempt to reverse the move.
"They do not want just one high school in Mason County," she said. "And they knew if they elected us they wouldn't have just one high school in Mason County."
Parents fighting the consolidation plan have halted the project, at least temporarily, with a suit filed in Mason Circuit Court.
Gue said she would like to put the consolidation issue on the ballot in the fall and allow the people of Mason County to vote on it. She thinks it would be defeated easily.
"There's no way one high school can serve all the students of our county," Gue said. "Our county is way too large and an hour or an hour and a half bus ride is too much."
Among other school board candidates, Paul James Doeffinger received 1,282 votes; Bob Drain, 979; Tom Sauer, 643; Donald E. Greene Jr., 531; Michael Ellswroth Whalen, 416; Rich Tench, 332; and Frankie Chapman, 227.
In other Mason County races, Circuit Clerk Bill Withers led the Democratic primary with 2,074 votes. Sherry Clatworthy received 374 and Shelly D. Mayes, 248.
Republican candidate Patty Lee was unopposed.
Incumbent County Commissioner Phyllis Ashley Arthur defeated two challengers in the Democratic primary. Arthur received 1,664 votes. Challenger Olston O. "Nick" Wright received 1,370 and Ben Roush Jr., 708.
James H. Lewis led the GOP primary with 972 votes. Gene O. Haer received 749 votes and Freddie Green, 736.
County Clerk Diana Cromley easily held off a challenge in the Democratic primary from Harry "Moke" Simpkins. Cromley received 2,485 votes and Simpkins, 1,180 votes. Republican Annette Boyles was unopposed.

School site's suitability questioned

School site's suitability questioned
Mason land may be contaminatedApril 2, 1998



Gazette photo by F. BRIAN FERGUSON
Mason County school officials say this 65-acre site is perfectly suitable for a consolidated high school, but residents worry about contamination from a nearby Superfund site and an old pesticide research station.



 

By Tara Tuckwiller
Gazette Online
POINT PLEASANT - Mason County school officials say they've found the right piece of land for their consolidated high school. It's vacant and flat, just north of Point Pleasant, with plenty of room for parking lots and football fields.
It also sits in the shadow of a federal Superfund site, where toxic waste left over from a World War II explosives factory lies buried in the ground and still contaminates the groundwater.
Also, environmental officials say pesticide residues such as DDT, the legacy of an old state agriculture test station, may still contaminate the 65-acre tract the school board wants.
"I'm alarmed," said Shirley Gue, a parent who has led residents in a three-year fight against the consolidated high school. "If they're going to build this school, it at least needs to be in a safe place."
Lawsuits filed by Gue and other parents have stalled the project since 1995, when the state School Building Authority gave Mason County $14.4 million to consolidate its three high schools. County officials had previously talked about building on a tract of land the county already owns, until this week when they got permission from the authority to buy the land near the Mason County Airport and build the school there.
"We approved this on the condition that it's a suitable site," said Clacy Williams, the authority's executive director. "I wasn't aware of any problem with pesticides. That sounds like something the school board is going to have to get their architectural firm to address."
The school board would pay the 10 local businessmen who own the property as much as $650,000 for it, county Superintendent Larry Parsons said. The original site near the Mason County Vocational Center is too small, he said, and the owners have government documentation that says the site near the airport is safe for building.
"We'll do the necessary studies," Parsons said. "If it ends up that it's not safe, I'll be the first to say build somewhere else."
The buried chemicals at the nearby Superfund site probably won't threaten the school site, said Pete Costello, site project officer for the state Division of Environmental Protection's Superfund section. The school site lies outside the area the factory used for production and waste treatment of the explosive trinitrotolulene (TNT), where contamination was heaviest. Past tests of the land the school board wants have not shown any contamination.
"We don't have a decision document to write it off," Costello said. "We're comfortable there's nothing there, but we're not certain."
When the explosives plant shut down in the 1940s, the state started using part of the land - the school site - as an agricultural test station. Since that had nothing to do with the TNT plant, the Army didn't have to clean it up, Costello said.
"Pesticide residue would be a big concern with me," he said. "In the 1950s, DDT was very common, and some other chemicals that are pretty persistent. Being an experimental station, it's hard to tell what they were testing."
In later years, somebody used the same site to dump some PCB transformers illegally, Costello said. The contaminated soil was scooped up and hauled away.
"There were some groundwater and soil samples taken in 1988 or 1989 regarding that, and everything appeared hunky-dory," he said.
Parsons said residents who oppose consolidation are just grasping at the contamination issue in a desperate attempt to stop the project. Gue, who has filed for a circuit court injunction against the consolidated school, said she will pursue the contamination angle if that tactic fails.
School officials are letting politics get in the way of children's safety, she said.
"Look who owns that property," she said. "You're talking about the power brokers of the county."
A partnership called Deerfield Development bought 700 acres in and around the Superfund site in 1995, just after Mason County got the $14.4 million from the School Building Authority. The partnership consists of state lottery director John Musgrave, who headed the Mason County Development Authority in 1995; Jack Fruth, who owns a chain of pharmacies; Bob Wingett, publisher of the Point Pleasant Register; Michael Sellards, executive director of Pleasant Valley Hospital; area businessmen Marshall Reynolds, Art Hartley Sr., Leo Calandros and Charles Lanham; and Point Pleasant attorneys C. Dallas Kayser and Michael Shaw.
Shaw said he and his partners bought the land because they wanted to bring in industries, and they never thought of selling it to the school board. A number of businesses have shown interest, he said.
"We're not too keen on the idea of putting a school there," he said. "It would severely limit our ability to develop businesses."
Costello said the land Deerfield Development owns would probably not be the easiest land to sell, since so much of the adjacent land has been on the EPA's national priorities list for hazardous waste cleanup since 1984.
"There's a stigma being on this national priorities list," he said. "The school portion isn't on there, but it's so close to the land that is."

Mason consolidation plan gets OK

Mason consolidation plan gets OK
But parents who oppose combining three high schools vow to block proposalMarch 31, 1998

By Tara Tuckwiller
Gazette Online

POINT PLEASANT - Mason County school officials got state permission Monday to close the county's three high schools and build a new school north of Point Pleasant, but many of the 120 residents who attended a public hearing on the closings said they won't stand for it.
"Here we go again," said Hannan parent Shirley Gue, who has led an anti-consolidation group in the county for three years. "The people of Mason County have said it a hundred times, but for the record, I will say it again. We do not want one high school in Mason County."
Twenty-one parents from Gue's group, which calls itself "Mason County Kids First," filed a lawsuit against the county school board last week in Mason circuit court, seeking an injunction against the consolidated school plan. They allege that board members are violating the 1997 agreement that settled the county's last anti-consolidation lawsuit by not following certain procedures, such as updating bus schedules, before they proposed consolidation again.
Board members want to close Hannan, Wahama and Point Pleasant high schools and build a $19 million, 1,400-student consolidated school about two miles north of Point Pleasant. Residents have repeatedly stalled the county's attempts to consolidate since the state School Building Authority granted $14.4 million for a consolidated high school three years ago.
"We basically heard from the SBA today that if we don't move ahead on this project, it's a dead duck," board member Mary Beth Carlisle said at Monday night's public hearing. "We can't let the people vote on it, and we can't use the money for anything we want. That's a fallacy."
Residents who spoke at the hearing said Mason County is too big for one high school, and they would like to see at least two high schools stay open. School officials since September have been planning a regional high school that would serve 750 students from Mason and Putnam counties.
Parsons and other county officials got permission from the state School Building Authority on Monday to move their planned consolidated high school from a plot the county owns near Point Pleasant High School to a bigger plot outside town, which would cost an estimated $650,000. The authority approved the site change on the condition that the school would serve all Mason County students, Parsons said.
That would seem to rule out a regional high school, but Parsons said it is still a possibility.
"We have reason to remain optimistic about that," he said.
Cindy Ball, a plaintiff in the lawsuit, said she would send her daughter Jennifer to private school in Huntington before she would let the school board bus her from Hannan to a consolidated high school at Point Pleasant.
"A lot of parents in Mason County work in Huntington," Ball said. "I do, and if my daughter got sick I would be 100 miles away from her. I couldn't pick her up."
The consolidated high school could be finished within three years, Parsons said. Board members will vote on closing the three high schools at their April 7 meeting.
As for the $4 million difference between the cost of the new school and the money Mason County has in hand, Parsons said he's not sure where that will come from.
"We need to look at a variety of sources on that," he said.
If Mason County doesn't start building a consolidated school by next March, the county will have to give up the money, reapply and compete against other counties for funds again, the Authority said Monday.
Putnam County schools Superintendent Sam Sentelle said officials there will continue planning the regional high school.