The Derry Cooperative School District will delay extending natural gas to Grinnell Elementary and Gilbert H. Hood Middle schools, after it was unable to obtain an easement from Shaw’s Supermarkets.
“We were unable to get that approved,” School District Business Manager Jane Simard said in a phone interview. “We sent several e-mails, but were unable to make contact.”
Should the easement be approved, Simard had planned to encumber the funds from this past year’s budget. “We were going to use money we still had in the maintenance account,” she said, noting the cost of extending the town’s natural gas to Hood was about $80,000. She did not have the figures for Grinnell.
The natural gas firm Liberty Utilities would cover the cost of the extension and the school would be responsible for the cost of the equipment, Simard said.
“We do not know where we stand at this point,” Simard said.
