Still no environmental reports for Metea Valley
Indian Prairie Unit District 204 likely will not release long-awaited environmental reports on the proposed site for Metea Valley High School at Monday night's school board meeting.
The reports contain the findings of tests for ground contaminants at the site along Eola Road south of Diehl Road near Aurora.
"We are trying to gain approval from the seller to discuss and make public those reports," Superintendent Stephen Daeschner said Friday.
He said he hopes to be able to release them later next week.
The environmental status of the 87-acre property owned by Midwest Generation and St John AME Church has been a source of debate in the community.
Environmental attorney Shawn Collins released a position paper a week ago outlining concerns involving a former power plant on the site and power lines and gas pipelines that run through part of the property.
But District 204 attorney Stuart Whitt said Collins is merely trying to scare residents and the district would not jeopardize students' safety.
School officials already have confirmed that traces of diesel fuel were found in six of 55 soil borings taken at the site, but they say that issue easily can be fixed.
Daeschner said Midwest Generation will be entering into the state Environmental Protection Agency's site remediation program.
In the meantime, Collins is representing the grass-roots organization Neighborhood Schools for Our Children in a lawsuit trying to force District 204 to buy the Brach-Brodie land it initially intended to purchase at 75th Street and Commons Drive near Aurora.
That plan fell through in September when a jury set the price of the land at $31 million -- $17 million more than the district anticipated.
After opening negotiations with several other landowners, the district chose the Eola site for Metea in January.
Despite the pending litigation, Daeschner said he plans to continue moving forward.
"If I slow down this district and wait for everything like that to happen, we don't get anything done," he said. "This is playing out in the papers. It certainly hasn't played out in the courts."
When the school board meets Monday it is scheduled to approve bids for steel for the school. It already has agreed to contracts for grading, excavation, precast walls and roof and materials testing.
The contracts are contingent on possessing the title to the property, holding a special board meeting to discuss the environmental reports and annexing the property into Aurora.
The board plans to vote on the annexation agreement Monday, which may be followed by an Aurora City Council vote Tuesday.
The 3,000-student school is scheduled to open in the fall of 2009.
The school board meets at 7 p.m. Monday at the Crouse Education Center, 780 Shoreline Drive, Aurora.