DIXFIELD – The planned new elementary school really rocks – and rocks – and rocks.

That was the message project architect Lyndon D. Keck gave the SAD 21 board Monday night when he came before the group to request the school’s first change order.

“We took borings and probes, but we can take samples but not sample the whole site. We found more rocks than expected,” said Keck of the Portland firm of PDT Architects.

Some of the boulders, he said, are as small as a beach ball while others are as large as the Dirigo High School community room. It isn’t ledge that is turning up under and around the planned driveway, parking areas, playground, detention basins, building and service drives. They are boulders.

“No solid ledge so far. But clusters of boulders,” he said.

And because of this, at least $140,000 was approved by the board to break up the boulders, remove or crush them, and replace, in some instances, with fill.

The project has built-in a total of almost $600,000 for contingencies. Keck said it wasn’t at all unusual for site work to use some of that money.

To reduce what could have been even more money to deal with the additional blasting and drilling of the boulders, Keck said new designs created a narrower service driveway, rearranged some of the parking area and raised a portion of the school building about a foot. Some smaller boulders will also be left for children to play on.

Another up to $39,167 was approved to help pay contractors for additional blasting, work stoppages and lost time related to the multitude of rocks found under the site.

The project’s owner rep, Carl Cooke, will work with the contractor to get the best deal for the school district. Keck also said that some offsets, such as the cost of sod and surface treatments, totaling about $48,000, could offset some of the additional money needed to rid the area of rock.

That’s not the only part of the school’s site located along state Route 108 in Peru that is expected to be affected by an unusually high number of rocks and boulders.

Still unknown is how much rocks or boulders must be removed in the area of the school’s two ball fields and the trench for installation of the sewer system.

Keck estimated a range of costs between $33,000 and $100,000 for rock removal in those areas.

“We’ll be coming back to you on that in the next couple of months,” he said.

Construction on the two-story school is expected to start as soon as the ground is thawed in the spring and be completed in August 2008. It will house all SAD 21 youngsters from pre-kindergarten through grade 5.