Officials in McDowell County, W.Va. hope to expedite construction of a $12 million elementary school after progress stalled as a result of a partial collapse of an onsite riverbank earlier this year. The riverbank must be stabilized before construction can begin.
Contractors are working on the bank, School Superintendent Nelson Spencer told the Bluefield Daily Telegraph.
“What we are doing right now is taking all of that excess material, which is dirt and rock, and moving that into the old area where the school will sit. At the same time we are mitigating the area of the bank where the slide occurred,” Spencer said.
The new school is part of a flood-proofing project between the West Virginia Department of Education, the state School Building Authority and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers. There is no estimated completion date for the school, which will be the last component of the project.