The condition of the upper field at Verona High School is forcing the Board of Education to move all fall events to the lower field.
BOE President John Quattrocchi said that while the engineering report from the radar scan of Thomas J. Sellitto Field is not final, the preliminary results indicate that there are three problem locations.
On the Sampson Drive end on the visitors side, Quattrocchi said, there is some sort of iron or steel below the ground that might pose a hazard. The visitors side of the field was created in the late 1970s on landfill material obtained from an Edison Laboratories building that was being demolished. To determine what the material is and what danger it might pose, the BOE needs to have some test bores done. If the material is found to be hazardous, the site would need to be excavated and filled back in safely.
Also on the visitors side at the opposite end, there is what Quattrocchi termed “a lack of subsurface that’s developing.” This is the area where a sinkhole developed during a football game against Immaculate Conception a decade ago. Quattrocchi said the BOE would likely need to excavate this area and fill it back.
The third trouble spot is in mid-field, near where the well was uncovered in late August. Quattrocchi said the preliminary report indicates that there may be another similar structure in that location. If so, it too would need to be excavated and filled back in. The well shaft discovered in late August appears to be 15 feet or more deep. Quattrocchi said at the last BOE meeting that shaft seems to have been near the location of the kitchen for the boys home that occupied the site prior to the construction of VHS.
The BOE approved spending up to $10,000 on the radar scan of the field at its last meeting. Superintendent Steven A. Forte indicated that it could cost an additional $25,000 to rent the equipment needed for the fall season. No numbers have yet been given on the cost of remediating the field problems uncovered now.
There are home football games on September 22 and 29, October 12 and November 3 and 22. That last date is a Thanksgiving match-up between Verona and Caldwell, which was played for decades on the lower field. The field decision will also affect the October 6 Festival of Bands, a large marching band competition that is a major fund raiser for the VHS music program.
The upper field was also built with all that fill from the old Over Brook Hospital Building that they had taken down.
Interesting. I thought all the Hilltop demolitions happened much after the field work. I can’t wait to see what the core samples reveal.