Reps. Dean Urdahl (R-Grove City) and Larry Hosch (DFL-St. Joseph) have proposed a bill that appropriates money to the Eden Valley-Watkins School District to cover substantial clean-up and remediation costs resulting from an accidental mercury spill at the Eden Valley secondary school in early December 2006. State officials initially told the district it should levy to cover the costs of cleaning the entire school, as well as the removal and replacement of materials such as carpets and vacuum cleaners, but during the House K-12 Finance Committee hearing, Eden Valley-Watkins Superintendent Larry Peterson testified that the district cannot cover these costs on their own. Peterson informed the Committee that school taxes are already going up 15 percent next year for the district, the voters would have no say in the levy that would further increase taxes to 27 percent and the district needs to pay the bill long before it can begin collecting the levy two years from now. “This spill was an accident and should not result in such a burden being placed on the school district alone,” Urdahl said. The spill happened Dec. 5 when an old-fashioned barometer was dropped in a hallway between class sessions. The school district has yet to receive a final bill for the clean-up, but officials expect the cost to be up to $150,000. “Much of the clean-up went beyond the spill itself,” Hosch said. “It is a good candidate for one-time monies we have through the surplus.” The bill was laid-over for possible inclusion in the K-12 Omnibus bill. Sen. Michelle Fischbach (R-Paynesville) carries the Senate version of the proposal.
