Water dispute keeps new Edmonds school from opening

EDMONDS — It’s almost time for class again, and some students are changing more than their grade.

Children who go to Madrona K-8 School won’t move into a new building this fall, as initially planned.

Instead, they’re going to the former Alderwood Middle School.

A dispute between the Edmonds School District and the Olympic View Water and Sewer District has delayed construction. The $50 million school won’t have permanent access to water until there’s a resolution. The two agencies are planning to go to mediation at the end of August.

The city of Edmonds gave permission to install the school’s water system, and final approval by the state Department of Ecology is pending. The local water district is worried the setup could contaminate nearby Dear Creek, which provides 40 percent of its supply.

The school’s water system is a well buried deep in the earth. After stormwater makes its way through the system, sand in the ground acts as a filter before it reaches the water source.

“Our concern is that while it may work for a while, it will not work forever,” said Lynne Danielson, general manager of the water district.

The water and sewer district won’t ask the school to replace the wells, but would like to keep testing the water to determine how it would be affected in the future, she said.

Development at the school began last spring. Madrona is a public school, although families choose to send their children there from across the school district.

Students stayed in the old building last year, while the new one was built. The old building is now being demolished.

Without many options, more than 600 students are moving to the former middle school, about 10 miles away. Since neighborhood boundaries don’t determine who can enroll at Madrona in the first place, some families won’t have to drive much farther than they’re used to, said Kelly Franson, spokeswoman for the Edmonds School District.

The plan has always been to use the Alderwood campus while other schools were being remodeled. Lynnwood Elementary children were there last year, and classes at Spruce Elementary are expected to move there in the future, Franson said.

“It had to have been kept up to code to have other students there,” Franson said. “We’re not taking a building which was vacant and scheduled to be demolished and putting kids into it.”

The former middle school needs to be updated, which is expected to cost at least $15,000.

If all goes as planned, Madrona students might not have to stay there for long.

The district expects Madrona to be move-in ready by Oct. 16, Franson said. The switch could happen during winter or spring break, or after the school year. The district will have to ask parents and staff for feedback, she said. Each move costs $35,000.

“We recognize this is a huge inconvenience to the families who have to change their plans, who in some cases are struggling to arrange for child care,” she said.

Class times are not changing, and the bus schedule shouldn’t be much different. The Madrona campus is expected to have a temporary school bus stop.

School starts Sept. 5 in the Edmonds district.

Stephanie Davey: 425-339-3192; sdavey @heraldnet.com. Twitter: @stephrdavey.