Going green? Knox Central High School mostly just spending it

The Mountain Advocate reports (subscription) that the geothermal climate control system in Knox Central High School is really messed up. Instead of great savings, the school has been pouring money into heating “14 million and 400 cubic feet of earth” for the past seven years.

An engineering firm ran tests on some of the 192 wells in the Knox system and found all sorts of problems including some wells not bored to the required depth. Other wells were blocked with debris and cave-ins. That makes it sound like the contractor didn’t do the job right.

Still, I wonder why it took seven years to figure this out and get some action started. Didn’t anyone compare the heating bills for the new system to those from the replaced one? Who is ‘minding the store’ in Knox County?