BY DAN VALENTI

PLANET VALENTI NEWS AND COMMENTARY

Second of Two Parts

(FORTRESS OF SOLITUDE, WEDNESDAY, JULY 27, 2016) — The “New” BB’s Monday story on the discovery of pollution and ledge problems at the construction site of the “new” Taconic High School by Jim Therrien said the money to cover the extra costs would come out of the city’s “contingency fund.” It then went on to contain this paragraph: “While disappointing and costly, the amounts involved are not out of line with the 30 to 35 percent of the average contingency fund for such a project that goes for unanticipated subsurface work, the officials said.”

Not out of line? What officials? Citing what data? There were obvious follow-up questions to this outright claim that Therrien either asked or did not. If he did not, he didn’t do his job. If he did, included the responses in his piece, and they were edited out, the editor didn’t do the job. Either way, if you read between the lines, The BB story tried hard to downplay the seriousness of this development.

Our sources tell a different story.

“They’re low-balling the added cost,” a site source told THE PLANET. “The soil and ledge problems will add millions. They aren’t even at the beginning of what’s in the ground.”

The project’s design consultant told The BB soil contained construction debris, asphalt, and tar “that are not considered hazardous.” The story says nothing about PCBs or other industrial toxins that have been found in the soil. Instead, it talks about “veins of soil unsuitable to build upon.” What does that mean?

“It likely refers to industrial pollutants,” said another of THE PLANET’s THS construction sources. “I’m not sure it’s all PCBs, although there are PCBs in the ground there.” The source said that this spring, “several” badly decomposed barrels were uncovered. Tests showed what the source called “industrial toxins … nasty, nasty stuff.”

Buried in The BB story is this line: “Other spots of underground contamination or debris on the building site of the new school also are being investigated or have been excavated.” One of our sources translated: “They’re looking for more disintegrated barrels and pockets or pools of [contaminants]. [The barrels are] hard to find and recognize. They were probably buried in the 50s and 60s. What happens is that the metal [of the barrels] just disintegrates. You have the toxins eating away from the inside and nature from the outside. All you have left are rims and bottoms.”

We asked about “construction debris” found in the ground. Sources said they believed if was from construction of the current high school, but, more problematically, some of it was “older than that. This is speculation, but I’d say this is material trucked here long ago by GE.”

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If you read The BB article to the bitter end, you also find this final paragraph: “Other recent test borings around the current school also detected construction debris, but it remains unclear at this point what will be required to deal with those issues as those areas will be used for new athletic fields and won’t require foundation work.”

Our source: “The ground is practically radioactive. … The problems here are just beginning.” Would city or construction officials be honest about what they find? “I don’t believe they will. They haven’t until now. Why would they change?”

We contacted the mayor’s office yesterday for comment. Mayor Linda Tyer said: “I was briefed when the debris was first discovered and then recently received a more comprehensive report describing construction debris, asphalt and tar. I am not aware of anything more than that.”

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We should add that THE PLANET has received no official confirmation of the information revealed by our sources. However, it seems the deeper they get into this project, the more it becomes apparent why none of your “leaders” wanted you to have a say. Why, if you had been allowed to vote on the THS project after the tough questions had been asked and answered, you might have turned it down. What would The Suits have done then? How would they have made good on all their promises?

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“And timid lover who had been so coy, / They hardly knew whether they loved or not, / Would rise out of their rest, and take sweet joy …” — Percy Shelley, from “The Witch of Atlas,” LXXVI, l. 649-651.

“OPEN THE WINDOW, AUNT MILLIE.”

LOVE TO ALL.

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