Toxic Waste Found Buried Near School in Torrance

When the Torrance Unified School District trustees met recently in a closed session, they were startled to hear from an employee that district workers had been burying toxic wastes on school property for years.

The employee, who was not identified, said the wastes, from maintenance operations and high school labs, were dumped in pits at the district’s maintenance yard near the Torrance Elementary School in the southeast corner of the city.

“It was our first inkling of anything like that happening,” board President Carol O’Brien said Wednesday. “We told the administration to look into it immediately.”

What was found, according to county health officials, turned out to be mostly paint, solvents and some biological specimens preserved in formaldehyde--all buried in three 6-foot-deep, 6-foot-wide pits.

No Health Threat

The officials said that although the toxic wastes apparently were dumped illegally, the quantity appears to be small and poses no health threat.

Workers were searching Wednesday for a fourth and possibly larger pit where boxes of discarded lab chemicals may have been dumped, said Anastasio Medina, a hazardous materials supervisor in the county Department of Health Services.

Medina said the workers are taking special precautions to ensure that the digging does not produce any airborne contaminants that could reach the school children or nearby residents.

“We’re proceeding very cautiously,” he said. “There is no danger to the public.”

Medina said that in such cases, potentially hazardous wastes are uncovered only long enough to identify them, then they are covered over with dirt and plastic sheets.

Workers from a private firm hired by the school district expect to complete the search by the end of the week, he said. After that, Medina said, the district will be required to come up with a plan to remove the wastes under county supervision, possibly when the school is closed for the summer.

He said the amount of wastes uncovered so far is small: seven plastic barrels, two 55-gallon drums and a number of glass containers.

Medina said that school employees have told officials that the dumping began in the late 1970s and continued until about two years ago.

He said the workers who came forward appeared to be motivated by “conscience and by concern over potential health hazards for the children and the public generally.” He said he could not disclose whether the workers were personally involved in the dumping.

Darold Kusch, the principal at Torrance Elementary, a 530-student school north of Arlington Avenue and Sepulveda Boulevard, said he first noticed unusual activity in the nearby maintenance yard last Thursday.

‘People Were Curious’

“The yard is behind a fence at the back side of the playground,” he said. “We could see the equipment digging holes and we heard they were looking for some kind of material. People were curious about what it might be.”

While the digging goes on, investigators from the district attorney’s office are interviewing school employees who may know how and why the materials were buried on school property.

“We need to know what’s in the ground, who is responsible for putting it there, and when did it happen,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. John Lynch.

The time period is important, he said, since state laws against illegally disposing of hazardous materials carried a one-year statute of limitations until 1985. At that time, lawmakers upgraded the offense to a felony that can be prosecuted for up to three years after it is discovered.

Conviction carries a maximum penalty of three years in prison plus heavy fines. The district also could be fined.

‘Appalled and Shocked’

School Supt. Edward Richardson said he was “appalled and shocked” that district employees had used school property to dispose of potentially hazardous materials.

He said district policy requires that a licensed firm be hired to dispose of such materials.

“We have spent $40,000 to $50,000 in the last few years to pay for these services,” he said. “I can’t understand why anyone would want to use any other method than the one we have provided.”

Richardson declined to name any supervisors who were responsible for operations at the maintenance yard, but said the district has launched an internal investigation in cooperation with county officials.