Problem at BISD complex, from the Beaumont Enterprise:
Blame for the uneven football field at the new Beaumont ISD stadium was compared Thursday night by one board member to the disaster in the Gulf of Mexico.
"This is looking like BP to me," said school board trustee Janice Brassard. "Who will man up here?"
Though no cause has been determined for the lumpy field, trustees voted Thursday's school board meeting to spend $275,000 in emergency money for soil testing and repairs to the field.
Though the district's bond project management company had requested $1.1 million in a worst case scenario situation for repairs, Parsons program director, Ed Caillouette, told board members a more practical price was between $250,000 and $275,000. The work could take six weeks, Caillouette said.
Two weeks ago, crews at the Dr. Carrol A. "Butch" Thomas Educational Support Center noticed lumps in the field that was being prepared for the artificial turf to be installed. Work stopped and soil tests were done to determine the moisture level in the ground down to 15 feet. Those results are expected back today and will help determine the cause and a solution to the lumps, Caillouette told the board.
But for Brassard, the solution to the problem was less important than how the problem was allowed to happen.
