Surplus

Surplus

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tanks, Dr. Gangel told the board. However, because of the ongoing coal strike he was unable to fill the coal bins at the high school. The new budget year will also see the system started with supplies of paper and stamps on hand, he said.

Work was still going on to get the | dechlorinator installed at the elementary school as the budget year was drawing to a close. Dr. Gangel had budgeted $15,000 for a dechlorinator for the elementary school’s waste water settling pond, Dr. Gangel explained. Chlorine tablets are added to the water to kill harmful bacteria, but water quality regulations now require the chlorine to be removed before the water is discharged into a nearby creek.

Environmental Systems Service of Culpeper advised the school system, and a Richmond firm did the actual design work, he said. The plans were submitted to the State Water Control Board and the state Health Department for approval. “Then we had to wait for approvals,” he said.

When the approvals finally came, it was too close to the end of the fiscal year for any construction firm to be willing to bid on the job to have it finished by the end of June. The contractors contacted by the superintendent said they “might” be able to do the installation in late July, but that it would more likely be August before the work could be done.

Rather than risk the possibility of having the septic system shut down by the state for non-complaince with sewerage discharge regulations, the school system had to do it itself, Dr. Gangel explained.

Dr. Gangel bought the dechlorinator and went to Winchester to have special mounting brackets made for it. Permission was received from the State Water Control Board to draw the sewage lagoon down to work in the chlorination chamber. Custodians Wilson Atkins and Shelby Atkins scrubbed the chamber down with Clorox one weekend, and building trades teacher Ron Vickers built the concrete block baffles.

As a final step, Dr. Gangel told the School Board, he and Elementary School Principal Bernard Chesshir would install the dechlorinator Friday June 30th, the last day of the fiscal year.

As a result of this do-it-yourself approach, Dr. Gangel explained, he expected the dechlorinator to cost about $4,000, rather than the $15,000 that had been budgeted.

That Work was completed on schedule, Dr. Gangel reported last week, and the federal requirement for discharge levels of chlorine in the water from the lagoon should be met. Tests by the SWCB will verify the effectiveness of the device.

Dr. Gangel explained that the installation of the dechlorinator was “probably the most important thing we are doing right now. Without a license to operate the septic system, we would be without an elementary program.”

“This is what they call progress,” Mrs. Massie said. “Many years ago, we were able to make do by having ducks in the lagoon.”

Following an executive session, Mrs. Massie announced that Harold Blincoe, who had been appointed assistant principal and athletic director at the high school, had declined