The 71 Acre Site
In April 2005, the Salvation Army "gifted" 200 acres of a 400 acre "Vorous Farm" given to them by Mrs. Casey, to the Clarke County Education Foundation (CCEF). This "gift" had many strings attached, however.
In October 2005, 3 weeks before the November elections which held the $55 million school construction referendum, the Army announced a reduced "gift" of 71 acres, this time with "no strings attached".
There were and are strings attached. Those strings are still attached and the land still belongs to the Salvation Army. The land will not be deeded to the School Board until all of those strings have been complied with to the satisfaction of the Army, and the construction permit issued.
a) Site Problems
This 71 acre site is one of the poorest sites in the county. It has a huge amount of rock and multiple karst features which contain potential sinkholes, mud voids, limestone ledges, and including a large cavern underneath the main building.
Please see the two files below to get an idea of the building foundation site problems. The five red lines criss-crossing the foundations are fractures containing high solution (water) activity.
PHRA, the School Board engineers (and also engineers for the Salvation Army) have even put a serious legal disclaimer in their drawings for this site (sheet C1.0.2), which states:
"The project owner or sponsor will acknowledge that the very nature of a site underlain by limestone involves the risk of unforeseen (and sometimes unforeseeable) problems. Because it is the owner's property, the owner has primary responsibility for unforeseen site conditions."
"This property is located in an area identified as having karst features. Karst features are created by groundwater dissolving sedimentary rock such as limestone. Features include sinkholes, fissures enlarged by dissolution, and caves. Geologic tests were conducted, and one or more of these features were identified on this property. Karst features are unstable and collapse may occur. Measures have been taken to ensure structural stability in this area, however karst features are dynamic and geologic changes may cause future structural instability."
VMDO and their engineers PHRA (also the Salvation Army engineers), are clearly stating that they will not be responsible for any foundation problems, collapses, etc. after construction. The low-lying building foundation location has been clearly defined as having "high solution activity" - i.e. water actively running underground, and which will further decrease its stability in future years.
b) Storm Water problems
As the school buildings location is on very low-lying land, there are still unresolved storm water drainage issues.
In 1986, the same engineering firm PHRA had also worked on the site of the current high school. In their June 4th, 1986 letter to the county's planning staff, they erroneously stated that "based on both runoff calculations and site conditions, no on-site post development storm water retention is required to manage the site's storm water runoff". How wrong they were!!
The flooding which occurs west of the current high school is well known and documented (see photo on right). The current plan proposed by PHRA has a long storm water collection channel the entire length of the 71 acre site, plus two storm water detention ponds - with a combined acreage of over 7 acres! Plus an additional 3 to 4 acres required off-site, and which passes in the neighbors' back-yards, which will render their land unusable and will negatively impact their water wells and drainage fields.
Are there engineering solutions? Yes, there are. But to properly shore up unstable foundations, and deal with the excessive storm water problems, far too much money will be poured into the ground for site work, rather than being made available for school buildings. The school has already shrunk in size, with its auditorium going from an initial 1,000 seats, down to the current 450 seats! The second gym has been eliminated, as has the Vocational Building. As site work costs rise, building shrinkage will increase even more.
Students will have to spend their time walking back and forth between the old and new high schools, depending upon their classes and gym schedules. What's wrong with this picture?
c) Building Problems
The current design is:
View large version of the current design
Expensive:
with its fancy "pod" design, which costs substantially more per sq. ft. than conventional architecture, much needed space is lost in order to fit the budget.
Inadequate:
This loss of space means that there are not enough classrooms, no vocational building, no second gym.
Not Functional:
The classroom "pods" are stuck onto the back of one side of the main building, rather as an afterthought. There is only one main hallway, which will automatically mean bottlenecks at peak pedestrian traffic times. In spite of VMDO's smooth "patter" to convince people of its great educational superiority, the building seriously lacks practicality.
A Security Nightmare:
In VMDO's latest presentation to the School Board on Monday, May 21st, they made a presentation of the building itself. Mr. Moje, when speaking of security issues, indicated that it was an "insoluble problem", when pointing out the many doors from the pods and main building which must remain open from the inside to the outside, although closed from the outside in. Looking at the detailed plans, there are FIVE different doors leading out of the classroom "pods", plus THIRTEEN different doors leading out in different directions in the main building.How do you supervise 18 different exits going in all directions??? A security nightmare!!
CONCLUSION: To continue the project on this site is a flawed approach. A new approach is desperately needed.
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