Students will not be allowed to use Sandy Creek High School's cross country track course until questions about its safety have been resolved, said principal Dr. Charles Warr.

State Environmental Protection Division officials have advised Fayette County school officials twice in the last two years to stop allowing students to practice for cross country track using spray fields of the Sandy Creek school complex sewer system, saying that running in the spray fields could pose a health risk.

But Warr said he has only recently been made aware of complaints that students were doing so.

"When they run on the course, as far as I know they stay on the course," said Warr, adding that the school's state-certified cross country course stops at the edge of the sewer spray fields. "Since there have been questions, we're looking at it closer, and have curtailed any use of the area at this point."

Officials will study the situation, he said, "to see what we can do to make sure that it not only is safe, but is perceived to be safe," Warr added.

EPD officials wrote to then-superintendent Trigg Dalrymple in March 1997, and to superintendent Dr. Dave Brotherton Oct. 22, 1998. A routine inspection conducted Oct. 9 revealed "athletic activities using the spray fields as a training area," James Elliott of EPD's water quality inspection division wrote to Brotherton. Brotherton has not returned phone calls from The Citizen.

Writing to Dalrymple in 1997, Bryan Boutelle of the same EPD unit made reference to the same complaint, and said, "Based on your permits, you are advised that it could pose a health risk to allow recreational activities to occur in the spray field area. You are advised to cease athletic activities using the spray field."

Boutelle said this week that the sewer system's operator, Claude Cason, had noted that students sometimes ran through the spray field and asked whether this could be a maintenance problem. Students might accidentally break spray heads, Boutelle said.

"There is nothing in the laws or rules that keeps them from using it," he said. "All we could do is advise."

Cason has since left his job at the sewer plant, prompting another advisement from EPD in its Oct. 9 inspection. A certified operator should be at the plant on a daily basis, the EPD letter said. But that problem has been solved for now, said school facilities coordinator Mike Satterfield.

The school system is using sewer operators who work with the city of Fayetteville, employing them part-time to keep the plant running properly until a new full-time operator can be hired. "Those people don't grow on trees," said Satterfield.

According to city water and sewer director Rick Eastin, the city has no direct involvement in the school system's arrangement with its operators. School officials asked if the city objected, and it did not, Eastin said.

A rumor had flown that the county water department had taken over operation of the system and was negotiating to buy it, with plans to offer sewer service to northwest Fayette, but all parties concerned said that rumor is false.