The ticking underground bomb
The underground fuel tank at the Harvard Elementary School is a mystery, both as to its origins and, more importantly, its present condition. School board member Keith Cheveralls has done some research on the tank, and on its Bromfield counterpart, and gave a somber report to his colleagues Monday night. While Bromfield’s 10,000-gallon underground tank appears to be safely encased in a concrete vault, the tank at the elementary school has no such enclosure and could spring a leak at any moment, Cheveralls said. To make matters worse, town records dating back to the 1960s provide no information about the tank, so it’s not clear how old it is.
Cheveralls recommended, and the board agreed, that both tanks should be inspected as soon as possible by Fire Chief Bob Mignard and the school facilities manager, Mark Force, and that the board should undertake to replace the elementary school tank before its contents start seeping into the ground. Asked where the money for that could come from, Finance Director Lorraine Leonard said it could come from the stabilization fund if Town Meeting approves.
