Students to be moved from school near power line
Renovations to alternate building worth $20 million
Colchester elementary school, adjacent to the planned Heartland transmission line, will shut down and move students to a neighbouring school that needs about $20 million in renovations to accommodate them, say school representatives involved in the decision.
The plan comes after three days of meetings in January that included representatives from Elk Island Public Schools, Alberta Education, Alberta Infrastructure and principals and parents from Colchester and Fultonvale elementary junior high school, which would be renovated.
Moving children to Fultonvale is the best way to address worries the 500-kilovolt power line could harm Colchester students’ health because it will be built within less than 200 metres of the school, said Colchester principal Bill Suter, who attended the meetings.
“Parents have told us loud and clear that they would not send their children to Colchester school if that power line was built above ground beside it. Obviously, there had to be somewhere for 185 schoolchildren to go and there isn’t anything now,” Suter said on Wednesday.
“We’re going to be here the rest of this year, all of next school year and then we would have to move in the summer of 2013.”
The Alberta Utilities Commission approved construction of the controversial 65-kilometre Heartland transmission line on Nov. 1.
Parents and staff at Colchester school in Strathcona County had pushed the commission to order the line be built underground.
In its decision, the AUC said that would cost an additional $300 million. The additional expense is not in the public interest because it “would not mitigate” the electric and magnetic fields around the line which, in any event, pose no health hazard, according to the decision.
The AUC did order Epcor and Altalink to monitor magnetic field levels around Colchester school before and after the line is built to ease the anxiety of area residents.
Although the commission decision is being appealed, plans to move Colchester students to Fultonvale have to start now, Suter said.
Epcor Utilities and Altalink expect to build the $610-million line so it can start operating in 2013.
“We can’t wait for the lines to be in above ground to start planning because to get something in place is going to take time, so we had to move fairly quickly,” Suter said. “By this time next year they should be getting contracts awarded for construction and construction would start in April.”
The school district is expected to request funding from the province to renovate Fultonvale, a K-9 school with about 330 students located 10 kilometres west of Colchester.
Designs would be drawn up and construction would likely start in April 2013 and continue through the fall of 2014, Suter said.
“It would, in effect, be basically a brand new school at Fultonvale.”
Participants in the January meetings looked at more than 25 options for accommodating Colchester students, said Karla Satchwell, Elk Island Public Schools association superintendent of human resources.
“The modernization of Fultonvale was the preferred solution,” she said.
The renovations and expansion at Fultonvale school would cost about $20 million, according to estimates presented at the January meeting, said Jennifer Matyjanka, vice-chair of Colchester’s school council, who attended the talks.
Parents are concerned about busing to a different location and how students will learn in the school during the renovations, said Matyjanka, whose two sons attend Colchester.
“Ultimately we would like Colchester School to stay open, but the chances of that happening are so slim that we really need another option. This is the best solution to what we have to work with,” Matyjanka said.
“Really, as parents, we’re not willing to send our kids to Colchester when the power lines are turned on.”