Yeshiva to wait on power study finding
YESHIVA College will await the findings of an independent environmental study before deciding whether it will move younger children off-site and seek compensation from Ausgrid (formerly EnergyAustralia), which is building an electricity substation behind the school.
YESHIVA College will await the findings of an independent environmental study before deciding whether it will move younger children off-site and seek compensation from Ausgrid (formerly EnergyAustralia), which is building an electricity substation behind the school.
The school is concerned that electric and magnetic fields generated by the substation could be harmful to children under 12, and has lobbied Ausgrid to find another site. Work on the substation begins this month and will take two years.
“We’ve commissioned an environmental study from an independent expert to find out exactly what the level of emissions will be, what the level of danger is and the health implications,” Rabbi Eli Feldman, a spokesperson for the school, said.
In January, Yeshiva’s consulting principal Rebbetzin Pnina Feldman said the school would seek compensation for moving the children, if it came to that.
That was still a possibility pending the outcome of the report, Rabbi Feldman said. “If the report says ‘absolute danger’ we have a right to seek compensation,” he said.
“There’s been ongoing dialogue at all times [with Ausgrid] but the matter is still open as we have to first get our advice and we’re in the process of doing that.”
Yeshiva had applied for and received a grant from the federal government to build classrooms at the rear of its campus near the proposed power station site.
Rebbetzin Feldman told The AJN in February this proposal had put the school’s plans on hold, prompting the federal government to ask the school for money already given to be returned.
The status of that money is under investigation by the Department of Education, Employ ment and Workplace Relations and the Association of Independent Schools of NSW.
One of the properties the substation is being built on was compulsorily acquired by the NSW Government from Rebbetzin Feldman and her husband, Yeshiva spiritual leader Rabbi Pinchus Feldman, in March 2010.
GARETH NARUNSKY
An artist’s impression of the substation
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