Unionville-Chadds Ford School Board directors are talking sewers and robots but aren’t ready to vote on those things just yet. Chadds Ford Elementary School needs to upgrade its onsite sewage treatment facility, and the high school is looking to furnish a robotics STEAM room.
Both topics are up for a vote later this month, according to Director of Facilities James Whitesel. Funds for those projects — $517,700 for the treatment plant and $41,242 for the steam room — are already budgeted.
Whitesel said the discussion about CFES sewage treatment — built in 1964 — has been ongoing for five years and it’s been determined that it must be an onsite facility.
“We’ve looked at connecting offsite [but] both possible offsite connection pints were cost prohibited, as well as approval prohibitive, so treating the water is really our only option,” he said.
Whitesel added that there have been some discharge violations in the past, and improvements are needed to meet future lower discharge limits. He also said that the half-million dollars for the plant are not the only costs involved.
“We will have an additional bid proposal for approval in October or November for the building demo and prep to support the installation of the new plant,” he said.
A total of $850,000 has been budgeted for the entire project. If approved, the district would buy the plant from Kappe Associates Inc.
Robotics STEAM room
Whitesel said the STEAM room (science, technology, engineering, the arts, and mathematics) would provide robotics teams with a “home base to think, make and do,” would be in the large library classroom at UHS, and “accommodate numerous teams and students and facilitate innovation. He added that the rooms would be used during and after school.
The furnishings, if approved, would come from Corbett Inc. A breakdown of the items and their anticipated costs can be found here.
Both projects, the treatment plant and the STEAM room, would be funded through the Long-Range Facilities Plan.
About Rich Schwartzman
Rich Schwartzman has been reporting on events in the greater Chadds Ford area since September 2001 when he became the founding editor of The Chadds Ford Post. In April 2009 he became managing editor of ChaddsFordLive. He is also an award-winning photographer.
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