No plans have been announced on when or if to reopen St. Croix Central High School campus, which was plagued this year by a phantom smell, but a report released Thursday by Government House provides a list of tasks that will have to be accomplished to make that happen.
The Department of Education does not plan to reopen the campus before the end of the school year, June 20, according to department spokeswoman Ananta Pancham. The future of the campus in the longer term remains in question. No decision has been made whether to attempt remediation or to reopen the campus, nor has a timeframe for such a decision been announced.
Central’s mid-island campus was closed in March after a series of reports by students and faculty about a foul odor on campus forced shortened school days several times over a month. The issue came to a head March 18 when a reported 35 students and at least one adult sought medical attention at the Juan F. Luis Memorial Hospital emergency room for symptoms including nausea, shortness of breath and a burning sensation in the chest.
The school was closed "temporarily" while investigators from the Department of Planning and Natural Resource, Education, the V.I. National Guard, the federal EPA and others worked to track down the elusive smell.
After a two-week hiatus, Central High students returned to classes April 1, but those classes were on a different campus. For the remainder of the school year Central and St. Croix Educational Complex High School have shared the latter’s campus, with Complex students attending class in the morning, and Central students in the evening.
Throughout this, a host of government agencies have prowled over, under and around Central trying to track down the odor. On Thursday, Government House released an executive summary of their report, called "Executive Summary: Operation Breathe Easy II," which places the blame on the sewer system in the area, including the nearby Barren Spot lift station, and a leaking propane tank, which was immediately repaired.
The report exonerates industrial operations, specifically at the shuttered Hovensa Refinery and at the Diageo distillery. Both were inspected repeatedly during the operation.
The Barren Spot lift station carries sewage over Kingshill and into the gravity lines which flow west past the Superior Court and down toward the treatment plant near the airport. According to the report, investigators tracked hydrogen sulfide through the system, finding it in places higher than 600 parts per million. It was over 50 parts per million in the court building.
"The presence of such a significant continuously produced source of (hydrogen sulfide) less than 1,000 feet from the school and in close proximity to the Territorial Court and Herbert Grigg makes the sewer a likely potential source of the March 18 release and of subsequent complaints in the Kingshill area," the report notes.
Identifying the source is only the first part of the problem, the report continues.
The summary says the “gravity feed line from the school provides a potential pathway to the campus” and that “smoke testing revealed multiple venting points throughout the courtyard and classroom area where students and teachers were impacted.”
“Results of interviews conducted during the investigation suggest that there has periodically been a sewer odor at the school indicating that sewer gas has made its way onto campus in the past," the summary says.
The report summary lists eight recommendations for the future protection of the CHS campus. They are:
1 – Pretreatment of the wastewater at the lift station to reduce formation of hydrogen sulfide;
2 – Cleaning the inside of the force main and any other activities necessary to increase flow rate and reduce residence time in the force main;
3 – Addition of an air relief valve on the lift station discharge pipe to prevent air binding;
4 – Thorough testing of the CHS sanitary system and repair of all defects that could allow sewer gas to escape;
5 – Construction of a “weir structure” in the northwestern-most manhole on the CHS campus to prevent potential migration of sewer gas into the CHS system;
6 – Department of Education and Public Works should conduct joint inspections of the sewage system at CHS and complete “As Built” Survey of the system;
7 – Separation of the CHS gravity feed line from the force main transition manhole by moving the transition manhole west of the V.I. Superior Court;
8 – Eventual decommissioning of the Barren Spot lift station as a long-term plan is also deemed appropriate.
