DATE: Thursday, November 27, 1997           TAG: 9711270700

SECTION: LOCAL                   PAGE: B2   EDITION: FINAL 

SOURCE: STAFF REPORT 

DATELINE: CHESAPEAKE                        LENGTH:   27 lines

CHESAPEAKE SCHOOL BOARD WANTS MORE TESTS ON SUNRAY SCHOOL SITE

The School Board voted Monday to do further testing on land in Sunray, after tests on proffered land for a middle school site revealed the land to be too wet to build on without expensive development.

``It's about as wet as it can be without being considered wetlands,'' School Board Chairman Barbara B. Head said of the 37-acre site in a section of what is known as New Boone Farm in Western Branch. The site had been proffered to the district as part of a development proposal called Bailey's Mead.

Head said the added cost of building a school on the wet land could top $1 million - more than the almost $800,000 the board offered for the land in Sunray during the summer. Last month the School Board revoked the offer in response to community outcry and the appearance of the proffered site at Bailey's Mead.

Head said the decision to do more testing on the Sunray site did not mean the board had decided to make another offer for the land there. She said earlier soil testing done at Sunray did not go as deep as the tests done in Bailey's Mead, so they needed to do the tests in Sunray for comparison.

``For us to make a good, sound decision on where we're going to go with this we need to do some additional testing,'' Head said.

Send Suggestions or Comments to webmaster@scholar.lib.vt.edu