Since the beginning of the school year, the CHS campus has been under constant construction to repair damaged gas lines. The gas lines were getting to the point where they needed to be replaced. The lines were too old and not functioning properly.

While administration has overseen the progress of the construction, maintenance director Rhonda Bacot has helped with the plans for the school’s construction.

“We hope to use the existing line to sleeve new, smaller poly pipe through it.  This will eliminate long trenches or a combination of that with new mounted pipe.  To do this we would need to dig up just the areas at the turns in the line,” said Bacot.

The construction staff began with the repairs on the gas pipes around the H- building and the gym. These repairs have helped to fix the problems that have arisen from the dysfunctional gas lines.

“[These problems include] the pool needing to be shut down and at one point, and there was no heat in the H- building, M- building, or the theater. Also, the S- building did not have gas in the science labs. These repairs will fix all of these problems,” said assistant principal Brian Mercer.

With successful repairs on the H- building and gym lines, construction has moved on to sites in between the theater and the cafeteria and then moves into the pathway outside of the M- building. There are three or four areas of cement that will have to be dug up in order to repair all the gas lines for that vast area of space.

“As of right now, the M- building and theater do not have heat, but the plan is that by the end of Thanksgiving break, they will have completed that project and those buildings will be properly heated,” said Mercer.

This week, the pipes will be renewed, heat will be restored in the classroom and the problems that were caused by the old gas lines will have disappeared.