THE parents of students of the Combermere Secondary School were able to receive a bit more clarity on what exactly caused some students and teachers to take ill, resulting in that school being closed for the last five weeks of the first term last year.
During the meeting that was held in the school hall at Combermere Secondary School yesterday evening, a team of environmentalists and scientists, some of which were past scholars of the institution, offered their services to the Ministry of Education, Science, Technology and Innovation, in finding out exactly what caused the slew of problems that the school has encountered over the past couple of months.
Brian Reece, who is a Health, Safety and Environmental Professional, reported that the aim of the team was to find out exactly what was causing the stench which affected the students and teaching staff, where it was coming from, and to try to come up with as many recommendations to fix the problem as soon as possible, and to bring the school back to an acceptable state.
He shared with the parents present that a full review and investigation was done at the school, and they were confident that there were no further locations that required investigations.
Greg Parris, a registered, professional, civil engineer, reported that their investigations revealed to them that there were some problems with the sewage system. He reported that regarding the sewage system, there was a fracture in one of the vent pipes, a fracture in the sewage pipe exiting the Sick Bay, a loose cover on a septic tank and the cap was off on one of the pipes. As a precaution, Parris added that they did a sweep of the wells and divulged that all the wells are in working order and the tanks were further cleaned.
Leah Garner-O’Neale, a lecturer in Chemistry at the University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, explained that an investigation was done as well in the laboratories at the school as a precaution, and they also found that there was inappropriate storage of the chemicals that could have contributed to the obnoxious odour of the school.
The team reported that a clean up was done of the issues and recommended that some safety practices were put in place regarding the storage of the chemicals in the labs and the treatment of the equipment and regular checks of the sewage system, to ensure that it is operating flawlessly.