Letters to the editor: Don't build the new QV school on the hill, environmental impacts in our area

Don’t build the high school on the hill

As residents of Leet Township who agree with the need for a new Quaker Valley High School building, we have attended the long series of our zoning board hearings. The facts and opinions expressed there by experts and citizens make it clear that the use of the proposed secluded hilltop property for a new school should be rejected in order to protect the students and homeowners of our greater community.

This is not about politics or zip codes; it is about safety.

Building a high school campus deep in the woods on Pittsburgh “Red Bed” geology should not proceed because of its potentially disastrous impact, exposing homeowners below to risks of landslides caused by massive earth movement and blasting on unstable ground, which even the most advanced engineering measures cannot always control (for example, the Kilbuck Walmart disaster). It is hard to think of a worse place to build.

The school board proposes building way back in hilly, heavily wooded land, accessible only by driving on Camp Meeting Road, with no other ways in or out of the school grounds — a bewildering choice. That narrow road is treacherous, steep and decaying, a tortuous two-lane road, subject to rockslides, ice and snow, driven by speeding drivers with limited stopping distances and impaired sightlines.

A head-on car crash Oct. 6 at the hairpin turn of Camp Meeting Road showed the potential for tragedy, which would be magnified by adding congested high school traffic and teenage drivers. Why take that risk?

Road closures or emergencies could trap students, teachers, parents and visitors. Even during routine school operations or special events, the lack of any other access route will create bottlenecks that could delay critical services to all who depend on Camp Meeting Road: homeowners up through Bell Acres, patients in our Rehabilitation Hospital and everyone at DT Watson.

Construction on the hilltop site requires wholesale destruction of precious forested property, an area equal to two shopping centers, adding unwanted traffic, noise and air pollution, irreparably and permanently disrupting the lives of all of us who live nearby. This is not how to teach our children responsible environmental stewardship.

The exorbitant expenses of earthmoving and road building for such a project cannot be justified: those many millions of dollars in school funding should be used for the educational needs of our children, not ill-conceived construction.

The hilltop property can be sold and a new school built right where the old high school already sits, with safer access routes, minimal environmental impact and far fewer risks to the health, safety and welfare of our community — on land in use that way for decades, and where QVSD’s expert witness testified that flood plain issues are not of concern.

H. Jordan Garber, Michele Antonelli and Susann Hyjek

Leet

Environmental impacts in our area

Let me get this straight — a school to be built on a hill that can potentially cause a landslide and destroy natural habitats, and let us not forget fracking wants to pump out 3 million gallons of water each and every day from Big Sewickley Creek. When the last tree is cut down and the last river is poisoned and the last fish has died, what do you tell your children?

Mary Kuga

Leetsdale