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Board hears results of service center studies
By Conner Hammett, chammett@starlocalnews.com
The planned Allen ISD service center will have no negative impact on air and water quality or neighborhood traffic conditions, consultants told the AISD Board of Trustees Monday.
At the board's monthly meeting, representatives from Weston Solutions and Halff Associates gave presentations detailing the results of their separate month-long inquiries into the potential impact of the service center planned for the northwestern corner of Watters Road and Bossy Boots Drive on nearby schools and neighborhoods.
Weston, a firm that provides environmental site assessment for planned government and military facilities, was charged with assessing impacts to air and water quality. Halff Associates, a Richardson-based engineering and architectural firm, was in charge of assessing traffic impacts. Neither firm has worked for the district prior to the service center studies, Assistant Superintendent of Finance Mark Tarpley told the Allen American Tuesday.
The permitting process allows the runoff of storm waters but prohibits bus wash runoff from being discharged from the facility, Koch said. In addition, quarterly and annual inspections are required to be performed by the district to ensure compliance in all areas of the facility that could cause a contamination issue.
"The Multi-Sector General Permit and the storm water plan will ensure the facility manages all those potential pollutant sources," she said.
Storm water at some point will infiltrate the groundwater, though the Collin County area has a thick layer of strata under the soil that largely separate surface water from the aquifers, Koch said. Drinking water will not be impacted because storm water drains from the site to Lake Ray Hubbard, where it is treated by municipal water utilities before being used for drinking water, she said.
Greg Suttle, director of facilities for AISD, said the facility's design further prevents contaminants associated with bus washing from entering water sources in that runoff from bus washing is collected on-site, filtered and reused for the same purpose.
The results of Weston's inquiry into air quality were presented by Barry Peterson, environmental analyst with Weston Solutions. He said the company's study sought to assess the impact on air quality from the contaminants associated with such facilities: carbon monoxide, nitrogen dioxide and particulate matter with an aerodynamic diameter of 10 and 2.5 micrometers or less.
Peterson said the analysis was conducted using an air dispersion model, which predicts ground-level concentrations of the pollutants in question at various locations around the facility. Background contamination data is then added to find the maximum ambient air impact. If that maximum impact falls below National Ambient Air Quality Standards limits, he said, then the district is in the clear. The study was done with consideration of commuter vehicles and an ultimate buildout of 150 buses, as well as a "worse-case" scenario of five minutes of idling for each bus before leaving the facility.
The model predicted particulate matter concentrations being "very small" and "below all the standards" due to the particulate filters anticipated to be installed on all AISD buses by the time of the facility's opening, Peterson said. In fact, he said, most of that concentration is projected to come from ambient pollution levels.
"The service center, under regulatory requirements, would not have adverse impacts on the proposed site," he said.
Steven Moore of Halff Associates presented the results of the firm's traffic study. The study utilized available traffic count data from TxDOT and the city of Allen for Bray Central Drive, Watters Road and Bossy Boots Drive, along with the anticipated trip load and vehicle count, provided by AISD staff members.
The study assumes the facility will generate about 1,600 trips per day to and from the facility, including buses, employees, deliveries and visitors. When routing those trips to the major roadways, the firm saw no major impact on the three major roads surrounding the facility, Moore said.
"What we found is that, really from a traffic perspective, this site is very well-located because its bordered on the three sides by what will ultimately be a six-lane divided arterial in Watters and two four-lane divided arterials in Bossy Boots and Bray Central," he said. "That provides it with a significant amount of vehicular capacity to get your traffic into and out of the site."
That will allow traffic to disperse and without using nearby residential areas for travel to and from the facility, Moore said. Additionally, most of the traffic will occur in off-peak hours due to the timing of the bus routes and employee commutes, with most traffic either entering or leaving the center before 7 a.m.
The studies were not met with enthusiasm by some opponents of the facility. Allen resident Michael Myers requested an inquiry into the impact of the facility on water quality in September, but said the traffic study cannot be impartial since the company performing it used data furnished by the district.
"This would make the study mute in that it does not follow the guidelines of being non-biased with impartiality towards its findings which strikes at the heart of the validity of the data and the outcomes," his most recent letter to the board read. "The fact of the matter is that there will be an impact, and [Moore's] numbers even proved it as well, as he even stated that there will be an additional 800 plus buses doing ingress and egress traffic patterns to the concentrated facility."
The board requested the district seek a consultant to give an impartial analysis of the site in January in response to concerns and complaints from residents living near the current site. Both firms were contracted by the district and offered a professional services contract in March.
The full results of the studies will be posted at www.allenisd.org under the Finance and Operations page by Thursday.
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