Archdiocese Spurns Caltrans Plan to Help : Traffic Din, Trash Plague Pacoima School

Students at Mary Immaculate Roman Catholic School in Pacoima are learning firsthand about pollution.

On windy days, noxious fumes drift through the playground from an automobile paint shop across the street, school officials say. And an adjoining vacant lot, which has become a dumping ground for trash and a gathering place for transients, was the subject of a letter-writing campaign by students this week.

“I think it’s a disgrace to our community the way people dump all their trash, such as their couches and dead dogs,” one student wrote to Los Angeles Councilman Howard Finn, who represents the area.

But the most enduring and adverse form of pollution at Mary Immaculate is noise from the nearby Golden State Freeway, according to Sister Marie Kronheimer, the school’s principal. The sound of traffic whooshing along about 260 feet from the school is a constant companion and often an impediment to learning, according to teachers.

School officials said they have complained about the noise for two years, calling Caltrans and asking parents to join them in sending letters to elected officials.

State Department of Transportation officials said they became aware of the freeway noise issue in May, when Finn wrote and asked them to look into the problem.

In June, Caltrans officials measured the noise to see whether it exceeded the federal limit of 52 decibels for schools adjacent to freeways. Eddy Chow, a Caltrans project engineer, said noise levels ranged from 44 to 57 decibels, exceeding the limit in five of 16 classrooms.

Caltrans officials have offered to seal the windows and install air conditioning in those five classrooms to cut down on freeway noise, according to Jack Hallan, chief of project development for Caltrans.

But this agreement has proved unsatisfactory to officials of the Los Angeles Roman Catholic Archdiocese, who say they do not have funds to pay for the cost of maintaining an air-conditioning system.

Instead, the archdiocese, which oversees all Catholic schools in the city, said it wants Caltrans to build a sound wall to reduce noise.

Albert Amici, construction coordinator for the archdiocese, said he intends to refuse the agency’s offer of air conditioning and will stand firm in his request for a wall.

Caltrans officials are also standing firm. Hallan said he is willing to install air conditioning, which he estimates would cost $80,000 to $100,000. But he also said Caltrans cannot afford to build a wall, which would cost at least $200,000.

“If they refuse the air conditioning, that’s it, there’s nothing else they can do. We would not go in and arbitrarily build a $200,000 sound wall,” Hallan said.

While the two bureaucracies lock horns over the issue, school has resumed this fall at Mary Immaculate. Kronheimer said she worries about how the freeway noise will affect her 325 students in kindergarten through eighth grade.

“It has disrupted the flow of education,” she said. “Our main concern is that children can’t hold their powers of concentration.”

Scott Kayser, who has taught at the school for three years, said the noise has forced him to alter his teaching patterns.

“The students who sit by the windows tend to ask me to repeat a lot of things,” Kayser said. Instead of lecturing from the front of the room, Kayser now walks up and down the aisles as he talks so that students can hear him.

Kronheimer said she would be satisfied with either air conditioning or a wall--”anything that cuts the noise down,” she said.

Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda), who has been trying to resolve the noise problem, calls the Caltrans proposal fair.

“I think it’s very reasonable,” Katz said. “Caltrans is not going to build a wall, and if the archdiocese doesn’t participate to a small amount, the kids are going to be subjected to increases in noise,” Katz said Wednesday.

Katz said he expects traffic and noise pollution to increase this year when Caltrans begins widening the Golden State Freeway near the school.