Elisabeth Britt has posted a good article on her Latte Republic website.  It concerns the safe locating of our public schools.  The new Options High School is to be build over a 10 inch high pressure natural gas pipeline.  The Bellingham School District says it is not "over" it but offset to the pipeline.  At the Hearing Examiner meeting the other night, the school district did not say how far from the pipe the school will be - but it seems it is less than 10 feet.  That by most definitations is over the pipeline.  Elisabeth writes of her research into state codes about pipelines and schools.  California has good guidelines.  Our state does not.  

Her article, "Why the location of our public schools is important to our children’s health and well-being" is a good read and one that makes us aware of the casual manner our local schools are placed in dangerous locations.  The school staffer responsible for the past 30 years setting school locations defended the Options HS location on the basis that he has located several schools near or over potentially explosive pipelines.  Hmmm.

We need common sense to be exerecised by our local powers.  They may be able to sneak their projects through the permit hoops, but that does not make their decisions good ones.  Common sense needs to come into play.  In this instance, the school district did not even mention the existence of the pipeline in their SEPA check list and environmental determination of non-significance form.  At the hearing, the school district poohed staffer poohed any danger, saying gas pipelines do not explode.