tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-11363735.post-1110496219522240882004-04-22T15:06:00.000-07:002005-04-03T05:57:48.340-07:00<span style="font-family:arial;">I notice that our local High School has been in existence for more than eighty years and is located immediately adjacent to the central business district of the Town, yet it is not serviced by footpaths of any description. This lack of pedestrian facility seems plain evidence of the value the Town Fathers place on the education and wellbeing of a new generation of citizens. Had the school been a Hotel, a Tourist Resort, or even the Offices of the Chamber of Commerce, it would have been well serviced long before now. Is it any wonder then, that teachers at such a neglected school might resort to unlawful means to improve it?<br /><br />Despite being build on the highest point of land in the town, with a magnificent view of the Indian Ocean only three hundred metres to the west, and a football ground three hundred metres to the north, the staff felt that in order to attract students, it was necessary to enlarge the sports ground. To this end one of the staff enlisted the assistance of an Earthmoving Contractor to extend the sports oval, using waste from a building site in the Central Business District. This might have appeared a win-win situation to both the Teacher and the Contractor, since the material was being provided at a reduced cost to the school, and the Contractor was avoiding the cost of otherwise dumping the waste at a site approved for the purpose, more than 40 kilometres away.<br /><br />In this fashion some 2000 metres of building waste was transported to the school and spread out to extend the sports oval to the west. The work involved more than 200 truck loads of material being delivered over a period of two weeks. Yet when it came to the attention of local residents that the fill contained asbestos, the School Principal denied knowledge of the scheme and claimed the Teacher in question had acted without authority. In an email to concerned local residents he bewailed the fact that he did not have the same control over his staff as he had over his students.<br /><br />The Local Town Council Engineers pointed out that not only was the soil contaminated, it contained building waste and was therefore unlawful for use as fill. In addition, the material had been pushed out past the boundary of the school property to trespass onto the reserve of the adjacent public road, which was an offence under the Police Act.<br /><br />Yet nothing was done to have the offending material removed. Instead, the school enlisted an independent Engineering Consultant to take some core samples and provide a report on the material found. Without making the results of this report public, the School Administration then declared that it indicated the asbestos contamination was confined to the upper 10 centimetres of the fill, which would be removed and replaced with clean sand. This was done, and then the School entered into negotiation with the Local Council to have the land on which the fill had trespassed transferred from public use to the control of the school, so that the problem might disappear with a stroke of the pen.<br /><br />Meanwhile winter storms had set in and erosion from uncontrolled storm water at the site exposed further asbestos from the deeper layers of the fill, and undermined the findings of the independent survey. This time a contaminant of another order was also exposed. Live blank 7.62mm military rounds were found by local residents, which were duly reported to the Police. The Police declared that since they were military rounds, and despite the fact that they were littering a public road, they were the property and responsibility of the Army. The Police also recalled that several thousand rounds of identical ammunition had been found at the site from which the building waste had been extracted. The Army had been called to that worksite after workmen had expressed concern about safety and the risks posed by such a large amount of explosive material. The Police subsequently assumed that all of ammunition had been safely disposed of by the Army. In the light of these complications the Local Council chose not to endorse the agreement to transfer the land from the road to the school, and instead asked the Department of Education and Training to remove the offending material.<br /><br />There seems to be a developing culture within government departments generally that they are above the law, and that the law applies only to the private citizen. Any sense of duty toward public interest appears to have been replaced by self-interest and expediency. Given that the School community is in a sense a metaphor for the adult society into which the 1000 students attending this school will soon be moving, it must be hoped that the theories of social order instilled in the classroom might prevail over the example given by the School's Administration.</span>kwollhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/13944298026517914362noreply@blogger.com