Toxic Cleanup Prompts Pupil Evacuation Drills

Two elementary schools held evacuation drills this week in light of what officials said was a “very remote” chance of harm from a toxic chemical cleanup at a Sun Valley laboratory shut down by the city earlier this year.

The drills briefly cleared classrooms on Monday at Glenwood and Roscoe elementary schools of about 1,300 pupils, who lined up outdoors to wait for buses that would take them out of the area in the event of a real emergency. The evacuation drills were held after the schools were told that a cleanup of the nearby California Bionuclear Corp. site will begin next Monday.

But city, school and fire officials urged calm, saying the drills are meant only to ensure preparedness in the event that some mishap releases dangerous fumes during the cleanup, expected to last three weeks.

“The possibility is very slim--very, very, very minor--that anything is going to happen other than that we’re going to clean up that mess,” Assistant Los Angeles City Fire Chief Jim Young said.

The laboratory, at 7654 San Fernando Road, has been shut since a January raid by City Atty. James K. Hahn’s office. The firm and its owner, Riad M. Ahmed, were charged with mishandling radioactive and other hazardous materials at the laboratory, which Hahn called “a bomb waiting to go off.”

Authorities removed and detonated some hazardous material after the raid. What remains, they said, poses no immediate danger but needs to be cleaned up.

“What is left in there is substantially safe,” Young said, although they could be dangerous if mixed or set afire. “If you went in there with a big stick and started breaking things up, that’s going to be a hazard,” he said.

The school drills, along with a contingency plan that was to be finished Friday at a meeting of city, county and federal authorities, were meant to prepare for a “worst-case scenario,” Young said, such as a fire that could release dangerous fumes.

“We’re assured that there is a very, very remote possibility that anything will happen,” said Los Angeles Unified School District spokesman Bill Rivera. But, he added, “If something happens, you could still move those youngsters fast.”

The Glenwood school is less than a half-mile from the cleanup site and Roscoe is about two miles away. Principals of both schools sent letters home to parents on Monday, informing them of the evacuation drills and the toxic cleanup.

At Glenwood, Principal Arthur Chandler said he has assured 10 to 15 parents who telephoned his office since then that the danger isn’t as great as some parents and students apparently fear.

“My mom said, ‘If there’s nothing to worry about, why did they send a note home?’ ” said Mianna Chavez, 10, a sixth-grader at Glenwood. Rebecca Brown, also a Glenwood sixth-grader, said some students feared that the school might catch fire.

A number of tract homes also are near the cleanup site. Young said it is unlikely that they will be evacuated.

Ahmed, the proprietor of the lab, is scheduled to be arraigned Oct. 23 on 90 counts of violating fire, building and radiation safety codes, said Deputy City Atty. Keith W. Pritsker. The arraignment of Ahmed, who is free on $20,000 bond, has been delayed because of negotiations over the cost of the cleanup and over a plea agreement, Pritsker said.

In a telephone interview, Ahmed said his company is doing business in Los Angeles County, but he declined further comment.

Pritsker said the estimated $100,000 cost of the cleanup is to be paid by Ahmed and possibly shared by his landlord, who operated a plumbing business in the same windowless, one-story brick structure.