By Cindy Kranz
The Cincinnati Enquirer

It's one controversial issue down and one still looming in the Three Rivers School District's attempt to build a new high school.

The board resolved one issue earlier this month when it rescinded a resolution naming the new school Three Rivers High School. It promised to seek more community input after the election. A local group wants the Taylor High School name carried to the new building.

Some residents are still upset because, if the Nov. 5 bond issue passes, the district plans to build a new high school on a fly ash landfill. Fly ash is a byproduct from burning coal.

In 1999, Cinergy donated the landfill - 135 acres - to the district. The company used the land to dispose of fly ash generated from the combustion of coal and fuel oil from 1981 to 1996.

"During the process of receiving that land, we had environmental engineers take drillings and samples from the land to see if we could use it before we ever accepted the land," said Danny Stacy, president of the Three Rivers school board. "Everything came back positive."

Cinergy spokeswoman Kathy Meinke said the Ohio Environmental Protection Agency has called the fly ash a non-toxic, non-hazardous material so the company doesn't anticipate any contamination problems. The landfill, she said, is lined with clay and capped with soil. The district has said it intends to put five more feet of soil on top.

But Richard Stewart of North Bend, who owns a gravel pit next to the site, is not convinced that the site is safe.

"I'm against the proposal. There are health concerns, but one of the main concerns is that the landfill itself was never filled to be a building site so it's structurally unsound."

Some of his concerns stem from the property donation agreement, which says the property was not compacted because it was not required. "Additionally," the agreement says, "groundwater under the property may contain levels of certain elements and/or compounds above normal. Migration from the ash on the property could increase the groundwater concentrations of some constituents."

The district also accepted all liability for any environmental, structural, safety or health concerns of a school there.

James Simpson, district manager for the Division of Surface Water, Southwest District Office of the Ohio EPA in Dayton, said zinc, chromium, mercury and arsenic are among the typical characteristics of fly ash.

"We consider it to be a very low-risk material," he said. "That certainly is not to say it is risk free ... I don't think anybody would say you can do anything you want any place you want and not have a problem arise eventually."

The fly ash was tested as it went into the landfill, he said.

"Quite frankly, the results weren't terribly surprising. I never encountered a situation where this sort of material failed the non-toxic test. From that perspective, it was OK to put into that landfill. ...That was not necessarily to do with anybody coming along later and building something on top of it."

E-mail ckranz@enquirer.com