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578â€" 90¢ Extended hours beginning February 16 â€" 28 Wed.â€"Fri. 9â€"9; Sat.10â€"6 Sunday 1â€"5 ‘ARIO N2J 104 IYCAM * REMOTE RS Picture Control) R PRICE CR A member of . 14 Canadians who are learning English as a second language. Those students, he added, might be wonderful writers in their own lanâ€" guages, and it might take as many as seven years to master the same proficiency in a new language. Ministry standards and schoolâ€"byâ€"school comparisons, he said, don‘t take those complexiâ€" ties into account. Mitchell said the fact that few Waterloo Region students, and even fewer across the province, met Ministry expectations is a sorry statement about Ontaric‘s education system. "It says it‘s in poor shape," Mitchell said. "And this is far from the first test result that shows that. Many, many crossâ€"country comparative tests have shown Ontario to be near or at the bottom of education e Te P o ”"r(’:'"&gf‘m"" e Pamas “fii*.vv"fiT' of general and basic level students should meet theâ€"acceptable mumm’emmnwumn essentially limped all the numbers together and proclaimed that Waterloo Region had done better than the provincial average," said Tom Mitchell of the Organization for Quality Education. "We felt it was important (to note) that the provincial ayerage was not particularly good. And so there‘s no point in pride of being better than the provincial average. Something more meaningful is to Jook at how the Waterloo board did against the standard expectaâ€" © tions that were set for the test." * Locally at the advanced level, 84 per cent of Waterloo colleginte institute students and 81 per cent of Preston high school students met minimum provincial standards. Other schools ranked as folâ€" lowed (in per cent): Forest Heights collegiate, 75; Cameron Heights collegiate, 73; Grand River collegiate, 72; Galt collegiate, 70; Bluevale collegiate, 69; Elmira District high school, 67; Southâ€" wood secondary school, 67; Glenview Park secondary school, 65; Kitchenerâ€"Waterloo collegiate, 65, Waterlooâ€"Oxford District high school, 63; and Eastwood collegiate, 52. Locally at the general level, 86 per cent of Elmira District high school students and 78 per cent of Waterloo collegiate institute students met minimum provincial standards. Other school ranked as follows (in per cent): Bluevale collegiate, 71; Cameron Heights "W ‘We believe that (6 have an effect on Canadian The number of homes for sale in Kâ€"W rose slightly to 1346, still down from the normailly available homes. In turn there are only 791 homes under $150,000 in all areas of town. The low supply will certainly create multiâ€" buyer situations on some of the better properties. The sale of homes in February is already up 20% as 87 homes have been [purchased this year over 63 last year in the same 8 day period. An interestâ€" ing statistic is that only 5 homes have sold over $200,000 while last year there were 8 sold with less sales. » The winter market continues to rumble as sales of collegiate, 69; Glenview keep going up in the United States is bound, Thanks, Ted Scharf, 747â€"2040 f EepTaEEzgv é;uâ€"ml;linâ€"g;â€"seu;r pipes could cost Waterloo up to $25 million "Basically, you put it in and forget about it." Waterloo‘s blackâ€"pipe laterals, however, began to colâ€" lapse in the 1970s, and are still crumbling at a steady rate of 20 to 30 per year. By comparison, he said, "We wouldn‘t replace one plasâ€" &flhay-." said that over time, the inside walls of blackâ€"pipe laterals begin to flake on the inside, then slowly leak and then collapse, causing sewage to back up When plastic pipe came along in the 1970s, black pipe fell out of favor, but in Waterloo, the damage had been done. McDonald said his staff are in the process of mapping out the location of all of the city‘s blackâ€"pipe laterals. They have estimated that there are 4,000 to 6,000 blackâ€" pipe laterals in Waterloo, which represents about 25 per cent of the housing in the city. Most are in subdivisions McDonald said a lateral should be expected to last as long as the house it serves, no matter what the pipe is "Apparently there was some decided price advanâ€" tage. It was easy to install, fast, light and less expensive, so from that point of view it made sense," he said. "There was no reason not to put it in." usually four inches in diameâ€" ter and buried six to eight feet underground, which conâ€" nects a house or other buildâ€" ing to the large sanitary sewer under the street and accepts all of the waste water from the building. Laterals had always been made of clay, but in 1949, McDonald said, Waterloo began permitting the use of blackâ€"pipe laterals; which use a material similar to the paperboard often used for the bottoms of drawers and the backs of bookshelves, only it is impregnated with "The paper product gives it structure, and theâ€"tar makes it waterproof and gives it strength," McDonald said. causes the destruction of lawns, gardens and roads and costs Waterloo taxpayers up to $500,000 a year? No, it‘s not squirrels, bad drivers or earthquakes â€"â€" it‘s black pipe, and for Waterloo‘s director of works services, Bob McDonald, it‘s like the black plague. When Waterloo began to grow rapidly after the Second World War, builders discovered that connecting houses them a lot of money. A lateral is the small pipe, LOO0 1994 REAL ESTATE UPDATE pipes (at left). Many have since collapsed. Bob McDonald, the City of Waterloo‘s director of works services, examines a m.dmmmw-mpbnmmwm to sewer lines in the 1950s and 1960s, prior to the advent of plastic ‘The Waterloo scene sure is moving along as winter works continue as buildâ€" ings rise and snow falls. The poor condition of many peoples walkways covâ€" ered with ice and snow was dramatically shown to me the other day . A blind man struggled behind his dog as the walkway was so narrow and slippery they couldn‘t walk side by side. This is white cane week but people should be aware every week that people without sight must function in our community makes buying a home not to difficult as the selection process is shortened of age, or because of a manufacturing defect. McDonald said if a few production runs produced defective pipe, it might explain why most of the blackâ€"pipe laterals in the city have not collapsed. And if that is the only problem., most might not fail for centuries. McDonald said no pattern of any kind has been found ers are fine. However, his department is busy compiling all available data on the blackâ€"pipe laterals and running it through computer programs to search for a pattern. As it is, the problem is costing the City nearly half a million dollars a year because it is covering the full cost of replacement of failed black pipe â€" $5,000 per lateral Normally, if a lateral fails, the City only pays for the secâ€" tion between the property line and the sewer McDonald said there are several theories to explain He said the best guess so far is that extremely hot water from dishwashers (which didn‘t exist when the blackâ€"pipe laterals were first installed) breaks down the inside walls of the pipe. However, the pipes could also be failing simply because McDonald estimates that 325 have been replaced with plastic pipe so far. The problem, McDonald said, is city staff don‘t know why the pipes are collapsing or whether they may start falling apart at a much greater rate anytime soon. in residents‘ sinks and toilets. Right now, the blackâ€"pipe laterals are only being replaced on an emergency basis, and wherever streets "We don‘t rip up laterals made of black pipe unless there is a failure of the pipe."