Has the EAW considered these questions?

The folks who put the EAW together for the Ordean site have minimized the problems there. Its worth remembering that they were paid by a District whose Superintendent has described the site as the “lynch-pin” of his entire building program.

Now that it is in the hands of the Duluth City Planning staff they have the responsibility to study whether there has been adequate attention addressed to the following questions. If no they should recommend that a more thorough EIS (Environmental Impact Study) be conducted.

• Loss of natural turf vegetation and replacement with impermeable artificial turf changing the soil/water relationship and dependency on subsurface moisture for existing mature ravine slope trees and the creek.
• Air pollutants created by back up, standing, waiting, idling traffic along 40th Avenue East, and the 40th Ave./Superior Street intersection, the closest streets to residential home sites.
• Extensive earth cuts exposing deeply buried clay infertile subsoil and poor growing conditions.
• Student hazard conditions created by extensive retaining wall abrupt elevation changes.
• Errant driver hazard due to close proximity of retaining wall vertical drop being so close to Superior Street.
• Where is the retention pond or other method to clean parking lot and pavement runoff including oils, fuels, salts and antifreeze pollutants?
• The question about subsoil not receiving natural moisture runoff and will this cause soil de-stabilization from clay drying and subject to cracking, causing structural damage to floors, foundations and pavements.
• Environmental impact needs to broaden to include visual impact. A large 3 story building set so close to two streets and residential homes will be visually out of scale with nearby single and two story homes. The building is so close to the corner that it restricts the view of motorists to approaching vehicles and pedestrians.
• Off-lake winds trapping and infiltrating traveling and idling bus exhaust fumes at the west south and west faces of the building.
• Extremely close bus entry and waiting lane to the west facing length of the building causing extreme noise impact and increased noise intensity thru open or closed windows on this 530 foot width of the building.
• The high density of paved and roofed areas along with impervious artificial turf will create an artificial environment that will be twice that of a similar site with the state recommended site size of 50 to 55 acres. This impact will also include reduced setbacks, noise impacts from the air handling units, parked/stopped/idling/moving vehicles, and increased traffic. The impact of a facility on such a compact site will at least double because the property is half of what it needs to be.
• There is an environmental impact on the community not knowing what the overall Master Plan, fully developed and expanded school will be. Surely the school will want in the near future to expand its sub-standard parking, add access/egress points to the school, separate vehicular student drop areas from conflicting thru-collector streets, provide on-site water management, add tennis courts, soccer field[s], softball fields, general use practice fields, and a second baseball field, and hopefully provide perimeter turf, screening and planting areas to try to blend with adjacent neighborhoods. All these environmental impacts should be fully evaluated.
• The small site causes condensed parking, setbacks, athletic fields, and reduced open space [55 useable acres recommended compared to 11 useable acres at Ordean] What this means is the condensed site will have fenced athletic fields with no unfenced, open space for neighborhoods to use for the myriad kinds of open space uses that draws people to neighborhoods. Schools should, ideally, provide multiple use areas for neighboring parents and kids to use for impromptu softball, baseball, Frisbee, flying a kite and sledding. Clearly, this half size site will be fully covered with paved parking and fenced athletic fields. There is no open space remaining for neighborhood use.
• Any adverse environmental deterioration will extend to surrounding neighborhoods causing real estate values to plummet along with tax generation.

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