GOOGLE MAPS
After reports came out saying soil from Jana Elementary School was used to level the football field at Hazelwood Central, which could have caused radioactive contamination, Hazelwood is not advocating all properties are tested.
Life in the Hazelwood School District just got potentially more complicated for its nearly 17,000 students and their families.
That’s because, in a memo released Monday, the district’s assistant superintendent for finance is recommending that the Hazelwood Board of Education ask the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to test all district properties for radioactive contamination.
The district is home to 3 high schools, 6 middle schools, and 13 grade schools, plus several ancillary service providers.
No strategy is being formulated about the course the district should follow if radioactive contaminants are discovered at district buildings and other facilities, such as playgrounds, playing fields and parking lots.
Jana Elementary School closed nearly two months ago after a private company — Boston Chemical Data — discovered what it described as abnormally high levels of lead 210 — a daughter particle of the radioactive gas Radon — in and around Jana.
The Hazelwood School Board is scheduled to consider the recommendation when it meets Tuesday night at 5:30 p.m.
In addition to requesting that the corps conduct testing, the memo — authored by Christopher Norman, the district’s chief financial officer — is also advising that the district request that “local, state, and federal elected officials secure financial support for any and all related radioactive contamination costs to the District.”
Jordyn Elston, the district spokeswoman, declined to comment for this story.
“As this will be discussed at Tuesday's Board meeting, the district has no additional information to provide at this time,” Elston wrote.
Ashley Bernaugh, the president of the Jana Parent-Teacher Association, praised district plans to test all its properties for radioactive contamination.
Such plans hew close to what she and other Jana parents have been asking for since June, when it was revealed that the Army Corps was seeking to come on Jana property to test it for dangerous radiation levels.
And so the call to test all Hazelwood properties “absolutely abides by some of these recommendations we had made,” Bernaugh said. “So we are absolutely happy the Hazelwood School District is reaching out to the Army Corps and asking them to address this directly, and to do so in such a way that’ll be no cost to the Hazelwood School District.”
Norman’s memo caps a turbulent two months for the Hazelwood School District.
In mid-October, the district closed Jana Elementary School after a private company found radioactive contamination from nearby Coldwater Creek inside both the Jana school building and the soil surrounding it.
The Hazelwood School Board agreed to a plan, beginning in late November, to send Jana’s nearly 400 students to five nearby grade schools while they figure out Jana’s fate.
Then last week, an engineering firm hired by the Hazelwood School District suggested, “out of an abundance of caution,” that the district allow it to test for radioactive waste on the Hazelwood Central High School football field. The idea came about after reports surfaced that sometime in the 1990s soil was taken from Jana and used to level the football field.
The estimated cost of testing the football field alone is more than $12,000. So the cost of testing all district properties could run into the hundreds of thousands of dollars.
This story was updated with a quote from Ashley Bernaugh, the president of the Jana Parent-Teacher Association.
Writer Mike Fitzgerald can be reached at [email protected].
Coming soon: Riverfront Times Daily newsletter. We’ll send you a handful of interesting St. Louis stories every morning. Subscribe now to not miss a thing.
Follow us: Google News | NewsBreak | Reddit | Instagram | Facebook | Twitter
