The Prince Albert Catholic Division thought there may have been buried fuel tanks on one of their properties, but in the end, it turned out to be a former ball diamond.
The board of education received an update on these alleged fuel tanks at the St. Joseph Facilities Property at their regular meeting on Monday from Chief Financial Officer Greg McEwen. The results of an investigation by Prakash Consulting showed that underground pipes were not attached to tanks, but were instead part of a retaining wall from a former ball diamond, and do not form part of an underground venting system.
Catholic School Division director of education Lorel Trumier said the finding was good news.
“It would have just meant that we would have to mitigate it and it would have cost us more,” Trumier said.
“We are happy to report it’s not (a fuel tank) and was just a retaining wall.”
Administration first reported plans to check for possible buried fuel tanks at St. Joe’s in a board meeting on Nov. 7, 2022. As part of the audit process, the school division needed to declare if there were any fuel tanks on the property.
“There had been some pipes noted at the north end of the Facility Centre location,” Trumier said. “What we needed to do was endeavour to find out whether there were actually tanks under there or what those pipes were.
“We had to engage a third-party practitioner. They came and then they assessed (the property) and said it was not tanks. It was used as a retaining wall.”
Prakash reported back to administration on Jan. 20 that the embedded pipes were not attached to fuel tanks.
Board approves contractor for roofing project
The board also approved a contractor for a roofing project at St. Michael Community School on recommendation from senior administration.
The replacement of the roof is part of the three-year Preventative Maintenance and Renewal (PMR) that has already been approved by the board.
“We are always under some form of roofing project,” Trumier said. “As you can imagine, schools are a flat roof so that’s happening all the time.”
The tender determinations were completed by Howes Roof Consultants and were posted to SaskTenders on Jan. 19 with the competition closing on Feb. 7.
The division received six tenders and Howes recommended that Clark Roofing be selected as roofing contractor and it was then evaluated by administration according to board policy.
