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Contamination in Pickard Hall to be surveyed

Casey Morell
/
KBIA

Pickard Hall at the University of Missouri will either be destroyed, remediated or saved following an analysis by MU.  The building was closed last October due to the contamination.  A comprehensive survey plan is now in the works to figure out the amount of radioactive contamination present in the building.

The survey plan will make measurements from what can be seen, as well as take down walls, remove support beams and pull other structures from the building.

The plan will be ready by March 31 of next year and will take nine to twelve months to get approval from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission.  After it is approved, it will take at least one year to complete the survey, which will cost between one and five million dollars.

The faculty and administration are now working together to decide what course of action to take, unlike the past says Faculty Council Chair and Professor of Plant Sciences Craig Roberts.  Roberts says the issue at Pickard Hall is a situation that represents a breakdown in faculty protocol from the past.

Roberts says the administration left the faculty out on discussions about Pickard Hall and what the possible situations were.  

“Informing is not really acceptable. Consulting and working with faculty is acceptable,” says Roberts.  “This is one of the most pronounced cases I’ve ever seen in breakdown of administration and faculty working together.”

The faculty is currently happy with how the administration is being run under Chancellor Bowen Loftin by staying open to their suggestions and opinions, and they hope the decision on what to do with Pickard Hall will be decided as a whole.

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