Source: http://www.oregonlive.com, August 4, 2014
By: Kelsey O’Halloran
Cleanup of a leaky fuel tank at Banks High School is finally over, but it’s driven a $75,000 hole into Banks School District‘s finances and may affect other school programs.
In the past two weeks, the school district has removed 596 tons of contaminated soil from around the 1,000-gallon fuel tank that had been buried underground for decades.
Unearthing a problem
The tank was discovered mid-July as crews began work on the high school plaza, a concrete platform near the Banks High School stadium and bathroom.
The district had no record of the tank, and no idea how much gasoline had leaked into the soil around it in the decades since it was last used.
With removal costs around $75 a ton, along with related inspection and review fees, Superintendent Bob Huston said the cleanup cost has reached $57,000.
That’s not including another $18,000 that will be needed to fill the hole with rock so that the area won’t settle as construction continues on the plaza.
“This is why districts have a fund balance,” Huston said. He said the school district will be able to cover the costs, largely thanks to bond interest that hadn’t yet been used.
Still, he said, “anytime we pay for something like this, it means that something else has to be put on the shelf.”
The cost to students
One program that may be affected, he said, is the district’s technology integration.
The district last spring purchased 120 iPads, — 40 for each school — which students will use when they take Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium  exams during the school year. Huston said the district had hoped to purchase more iPads — potentially as early as this winter — but may have to slow their pace due to the unexpected costs of the tank cleanup.
“We’ll continue to move forward with technology, but maybe not at the accelerated rate that we’d hoped for,” Huston said.
On the bright side, he said, contamination from the tank narrowly missed the track and came within three feet of the stadium’s new bathroom facilities.
“It could be worse,” he said.
Huston also said that Banks High School and the surrounding area receive city water, so no wells were at risk of gasoline contamination.
The district now hopes to complete the plaza by late August or early September. The plaza, originally scheduled for completion on Aug. 25, was meant to be a $200,000 project.
Huston said the tank was likely 60 to 80 years old, and may have been used to fuel driver education cars at the school, or to fill up tractors farming nearby fields.