The Register-Herald, Beckley, West Virginia

Today's Front Page

April 30, 2010

Marsh Fork Elementary School offered $2 million boost from foundation

By Mannix Porterfield Register-Herald Reporter

BECKLEY — A Colorado foundation is offering $2 million toward a new Marsh Fork Elementary School, since the existing structure, nestled precariously near a huge coal silo and massive slurry impoundment, has long been a source of parental and community concern.

This latest offer might be the final installment for the proposed replacement of the exiting 70-year-old school.

In Charleston this morning, Gov. Joe Manchin is holding a news conference to reportedly announce the deal.

What isn’t yet clear is whether the state will be putting up any additional cash beyond the $2.6 million pledged earlier this week by the School Building Authority.

“It’s looking good for this thing,” Manchin’s communications director, Matt Turner, told The Register-Herald Thursday.

“That’s why we’ve scheduled a news conference. It will involve a private group that is pledging some funding to help us with some school building.”

A late afternoon media advisory from the governor’s office identified the foundation as the Annenberg Foundation, based in Colorado.

More importantly,  Raleigh County school board member Jack “Gordie” Roop suggested the $2 million, if given, could be all that is required to construct a new school.

Originally, the cost was estimated at $8.6 million. With SBA’s promise, and identical $1 million donations from both the school board and the impoundment and silo owner, Massey Energy, that would ordinarily leave the goal $4 million shy. But Roop indicated the school possibly could be built with between $6 million and $7 million in funds, meaning the private foundation’s contribution would be sufficient.

“We’re looking at every kind of option there is, so we can get this done for them,” Roop said.

“We are working, working, working, because they need a school down there.”

Parents and community members have voiced fear for several years that the coal silo poses a health danger to children enrolled at the school, and that the large impoundment creates an environment for a potential disaster if it ever collapsed, akin to the Feb. 26, 1972, flood in Buffalo Creek Hollow in Logan County, where a known 125 died after a similar mining impoundment fell apart.

“It’s pretty neat how everybody has been coming together in trying to get this done,” Roop said of the school project.

Board President Richard Snuffer II and others were miffed Monday when the SBA scaled back their request for funding, saying the local officials should have attended the meeting. But Snuffer said there is no way the county’s presentation could have been altered, with or without anyone at the SBA meeting.

Since then, Roop said he has been in constant touch with Manchin in exploring ways to round up additional money.

Three tentative sites are being eyed for the school along W.Va. 3, all of them satisfying a requirement that the structure not be in the flood plain of Coal River.

“I know one thing — those people down there deserve it, especially after the disaster,” Roop said, referring to the April 5 explosion that killed 29 coal workers in the Upper Big Branch mine, near the school.

“How those people came together. It was exceptional.”

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